nd he counted him as an historian superior to Hume, Smollett,
and Lyttelton. Goldsmith had a fine faculty in histories for
presenting vital facts concisely, and making his pages compendious.
The grace he had by instinct others strove to create by vast
elaboration. It has been said that Robertson's ornamentations hid what
is essential in his records. No one can ever discover Goldsmith in
anything striving for effect. It is not possible now to enumerate, or
even ascertain, all the friends that came to those chambers in the
Temple. Among them may be mentioned young Craddock, with an estate in
the country, aesthetic tendencies, and literary talents. With him, in a
few light musical works that came to little, Goldsmith collaborated.
This man had that respect for the poet and the humorist his life and
character and genius deserved. When once this cultured squire
exhibited for criticism an elaborate manuscript, which in all the
peace of leisured wealth and ease, and such talent as he possessed, he
had composed with exquisite care, well might poor Goldsmith say:

"Ah, Mr. Craddock, think of me, that must write a volume every month."

[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
2, BRICK COURT, TEMPLE, WHERE GOLDSMITH DIED.]

In his rooms in Brick Court, Temple, Goldsmith used to sit at his
window, his eyes lingering lovingly upon the flowers and the foliage
in the gardens beneath, and his heart drinking in the sweet
peacefulness of the scene. He watched the Thames gliding on silently,
serenely faithful to and fulfilling its great imperishable mission.
Rivers are the signs and the symbols of immortality. The poet saw the
rooks upon the lawns, and made new friends of these black-winged, busy
birds, and found angels' voices in the whispers of the rustling leaves
sweetly pleading. The flowers smiled up at him, as, gazing gently
down, he wreathed with welcomes all passing hearts amid many known and
unknown wanderers. There are those that have wondered, in the
inscrutable ordering of events, and feeling that strange chances take
their unexpected, often fulfilling, and often failing, part in these,
what had happened for letters and for humanity had Goldsmith met
Chatterton, who may have wearily paced the Temple Gardens, and even
have glanced up and seen Goldsmith looking down in all his tenderness.
In the literary history of this period the death of Chatterton darkens
the most painful page. At the time when this poor boy too