then, as now, made against him, may perhaps be quoted here,
from the excellent, the respectable Sir Walter Scott. "Soon after
_Tristram_ had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire lady of fortune
and condition, whether she had read his book, 'I have not, Mr.
Sterne,' was the answer; 'and to be plain with you, I am informed it
is not proper for female perusal.' 'My dear good lady,' replied the
author, 'do not be gulled by such stories; the book is like your
young heir there' (pointing to a child of three years old, who was
rolling on the carpet in his white tunics): 'he shows at times a
good deal that is usually concealed, but it is all in perfect
innocence.' "

182 "Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural
History; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken
lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six-mile stone in the
Edgeware Road, and had carried down his books in two returned
post-chaises. He said he believed the farmer's family thought him an
odd character, similar to that in which the _Spectator_ appeared to
his landlady and her children; he was _The Gentleman_. Mr. Mickle,
the translator of the _Lusiad_, and I, went to visit him at this
place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a
curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps
of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall with a blacklead
pencil."--BOSWELL.

183 "When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, 'Your pulse is in
greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of fever which
you have; is your mind at ease?' Goldsmith answered it was not."--DR.
JOHNSON (_in Boswell_).

"Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone much
farther. He died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear
of distress. He had raised money and squandered it, by every
artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. But let not his
failings be remembered; he was a very great man."--DR. JOHNSON to
Boswell, July 5th, 1774.

184 "When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into tears.
Reynolds was in his painting-room when the messenger went to him;
but at once he laid his pencil aside, which in times of great family
distress he had not been known to do, left his painting-r