ce merry."

The History of the Earth and Animated Nature, in eight volumes, closed
the labours of Goldsmith. This compilation, however recommended by the
agreeableness of style usual to its author, is but little prized for its
accuracy. In a summary of past events, which are often differently
related by writers of authority and credit nearly equal, it is in vain
to look for certainty. But when we are presented with a description of
natural objects that required only to be looked at in order to be known,
we are neither amused nor instructed without some degree of precision.
History partakes of the nature of romance. Physiology is more closely
connected with science. In the one we must often rest contented with
probability. In the other we know that truth is generally to be
attained, and therefore expect to find it.

Goldsmith had been for some time subject to attacks of strangury; and
having before experienced relief from James's powders, had again
recourse to that popular medicine. His medical attendants are said to
have remonstrated with him on its unfitness in the stage to which his
disorder had reached; but he persevered; and his fever increasing, and
some secret distress of mind, under which he owned to Dr. Turton that he
laboured, aggravating his bodily complaint, he expired on the 4th of
April in his forty-fifth year.

He was privately interred in the Temple burying ground. A monument is
erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, with the following epitaph
by Johnson, written at the solicitation of their common friends.

Olivarii Goldsmith,
Poetae, Physici, Historici
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus
Non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit:
Seu risus essent movendi,
Sive lacrymae,
Affectuum potens at lenis dominator:
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis,
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus:
Hoc monumento memoriam coluit
Sodalium amor,
Amicorum fides,
Lectorum veneratio.
Natus in Hibernia, Forniae Longfordiensis,
In loco cui nomen Pallas.
Nov. XXIX, MDCCXXXI.
Eblanae literis institutus;
Obiit Londini,
April. IV. MDCCLXXIV.

It has been questioned whether there is any authority for using the word
"tetigit" as it is here employed. I have heard it observed by one, whose
opinion on such subjects is decisive, that "contigit" would have better
expressed the writer's meaning.

Another epitaph composed by Johnson in Greek, deserves notice, as it
shows how strongly his mind was impressed by Goldsmith'