ard elfin spirit, if we may so term it,
throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school,
academy, or college: they unfit him for close study and practical
science, and render him heedless of everything that does not address
itself to his poetical imagination, and genial and festive feelings;
they dispose him to break away from restraint, to stroll about
hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel with jovial
companions, or to rove the country like a gipsy in quest of odd
adventures....

"Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the
poor, they never could betray him into companionship with the
depraved. His relish for humour, and for the study of character, as
we have before observed, brought him often into convivial company of
a vulgar kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity and
their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole store
familiar features of life which form the staple of his most popular
writings."--WASHINGTON IRVING.

173 "The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasionally
written, Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and
seems always to have held a respectable station in society. Its
origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which was long
settled at Crayford in Kent."--PRIOR'S _Life of Goldsmith_.

Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were
clergymen; and two of them married clergymen's daughters.

174 At church with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal each honest rustic ran;
E'en children follow'd with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
As some tall cliff that lifts his awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

_The Deserted V