d the young writer--two young
men, for they were only thirty-six--was of the closest. Dickens'
admiration of his friend's book was unbounded. He read it with delight
and expressed his admiration with an affectionate enthusiasm. It was
no wonder that in "gentle Goldsmith's life" thus unfolded, he found a
replica of his own sore struggles. No one knew better the "fiercer
crowded misery in garret toil and London loneliness" than he did.

TO CHARLES DICKENS.

Genius and its rewards are briefly told:
A liberal nature and a niggard doom,
A difficult journey to a splendid tomb.
New writ, nor lightly weighed, that story old
In gentle Goldsmith's life I here unfold;
Thro' other than lone wild or desert gloom,
In its mere joy and pain, its blight and bloom,
Adventurous. Come with me and behold,
O friend with heart as gentle for distress,
As resolute with fine wise thoughts to bind
The happiest to the unhappiest of our kind,
That there is fiercer crowded misery
In garret toil and London loneliness
Than in cruel islands mid the far off sea.

March, 1848. JOHN FORSTER.

It will be noted what a warmth of affection is shown in these pleasing
lines. Some of the verses linger in his memory: the last three
especially. The allusion to Dickens is as truthful as it is charming.
The "cruel islands mid the far off sea" was often quoted, though
there were sometimes sarcastic appeals to the author to name his
locality.

This _Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith_ is a truly charming
book: charming in the writing, in its typographic guise, and its forty
graceful illustrations by his friends, Maclise, Leech, Browne, etc. It
appeared in 1848. A pleasing feature of those times was the close
fellowship between the writers and the painters and other artists, as
was shown in the devoted affection of Maclise and others to Dickens.
There is more of class apart nowadays. Artists and writers are not
thus united. The work has gone through many editions; but, after some
years the whim seized him to turn it into an official literary history
of the period, and he issued it as a "Life and Times," with an
abundance of notes and references. All the pleasant air of story
telling, the "Life and Adventures," so suited to poor Goldy's
shiftless career, were abolished. It was a sad mistake, much
deprecated by his friends, notably by Carlyle. But at the pe