MITH WROTE SOME OF
HIS FAMOUS WORK.]

During his last years, Goldsmith sometimes received as much as L800 in
twelve months; but the more he earned, the deeper he plunged into
debt. When he died, in 1774, at the age of forty-five, he owed L2000.
He was loved because--

"...e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side."

His grave by the Temple Church on Fleet Street, London, is each year
visited by thousands who feel genuine affection for him in spite of
his shortcomings.

Masterpieces.--His best work consists of two poems, _The Traveler_
and _The Deserted Village_; a story, _The Vicar of Wakefield_; and a
play,_She Stoops to Conquer_.

The object of _The Traveler_ (1765), a highly polished moral and
didactic poem, was to show that happiness is independent of climate,
and hence to justify the conclusion:--

"Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centers in the mind."

_The Deserted Village_ (1770) also has a didactic aim, for which we
care little. Its finest parts, those which impress us most, were
suggested to Goldsmith by his youthful experiences. We naturally
remember the sympathetic portrait of the poet's father, "the village
preacher":--

"A man he was to all the country dear
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
* * * * *
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain."

The lines relating to the village schoolmaster are almost as well
known as Scripture. Previous to this time, the eighteenth century had
not produced a poem as natural, sincere, and sympathetic in its
descriptions and portraits as _The Deserted Village_.

_The Vicar of Wakefield_ is a delightful romantic novel, which Andrew
Lang classes among books "to be read once a year." Goldsmith's own
criticism of the story in the _Advertisement_ announcing it has not
yet been surpassed:--

"There are an hundred faults in this Thing, and an hundred things
might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book
may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may he very dull without
a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the
three greatest characters upon earth: he is a priest, an husbandman,
and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to teach and ready
to obey; as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity."

[Illustration: DR. PRIMROSE AND HIS FAMILY. _From a drawing by G.
P