Johnson was not industrious for
the pure sake and love of labour. He preferred ease, and never, he
acknowledged, worked when he had a guinea to preclude the unpleasant
necessity of toil. Of Goldsmith Thackeray said: "The poor fellow was
never so friendless but he could befriend someone." Sincere and
sublime tributes of love, honour, and affection are offerings doubly
blessed, blessing those who give and those who do receive. Nobly
Oliver Goldsmith revered his brother Henry. The sudden separation from
this heart was the greatest pain for Goldsmith when at last the day
came.

The best idea of the life of Goldsmith at this period is gleaned from
his great poem _The Deserted Village_. These were his words as he
looked back:

"How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!"

With what delight he shares the rustic revelry. There falls the light
of lingering love on each and every line and word:

"These were thy charms, but all these charms are fled,"

he cries,

"And desolation saddens all thy green."

He depicts emigration and its devastating and enforced exile, so
widely diverse from the healthful, free, and willing spirit of true
and liberal colonisation:

"Far, far away thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."

Years later the man wrote these lines, but the thoughts, the burning
sense of burning wrong, the pain and anguish, were hidden in the heart
of the youth, outwardly so careless:

"A bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied."

There is a majesty in the lines--

"His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth."

A little later he speaks of

"Every pang that folly pays to pride."

There is a depth in the man who could write:

"Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain;
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my grief--and God has given my share--
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down."

How pretty and how pathetic is the picture in this poem of the end
that he had fancied for his days! A thousand and a thousand times
the ceaseless humanity, seeking only love, endears the man. Mark the
sweet, true, and sublime ideal:

"Angels around befriending Virtue's fr