A
transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt us. She looked
amiable. Why could I not live and end my days thus? 'Just Disposer of our
joys and sorrows!' cried I, 'why could not a man sit down in the lap of
content here, and dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven
with this nut-brown maid?' Capriciously did she bend her head on one side,
and dance up insidious. 'Then 'tis time to dance off,' quoth I."

And with this pretty dance and chorus, the volume artfully concludes. Even
here one can't give the whole description. There is not a page in Sterne's
writing but has something that were better away, a latent corruption--a
hint, as of an impure presence.(170)

Some of that dreary _double entendre_ may be attributed to freer times and
manners than ours, but not all. The foul Satyr's eyes leer out of the
leaves constantly: the last words the famous author wrote were bad and
wicked--the last lines the poor stricken wretch penned were for pity and
pardon. I think of these past writers and of one who lives amongst us now,
and am grateful for the innocent laughter and the sweet and unsullied page
which the author of _David Copperfield_ gives to my children.

-------------------------------------

Jete sur cette boule,
Laid, chetif et souffrant;
Etouffe dans la foule,
Faute d'etre assez grand;

Une plainte touchante
De ma bouche sortit;
Le bon Dieu me dit: Chante,
Chante, pauvre petit!

Chanter, ou je m'abuse,
Est ma tache ici-bas.
Tous ceux qu'ainsi j'amuse,
Ne m'aimeront-ils pas?

In those charming lines of Beranger, one may fancy described the career,
the sufferings, the genius, the gentle nature of GOLDSMITH, and the esteem
in which we hold him. Who, of the millions whom he has amused, doesn't
love him? To be the most beloved of English writers, what a title that is
for a man!(171) A wild youth, wayward, but full of tenderness and
affection, quits the country village where his boyhood has been passed in
happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see the great world out
of doors, and achieve name and fortune--and after years of dire struggle,
and neglect and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to his native
place, as it had longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, he writes
a book and a poem, full of the recollections and feelings of home--he
paints the friends and scenes of his youth, and peoples Aub