were
spasmodic and desultory: he tried law and medicine, and more than once
gained a scanty support by teaching. Seized with a rambling spirit, he
went to the Continent, and visited Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland,
and Italy; sometimes gaining a scanty livelihood by teaching English, and
sometimes wandering without money, depending upon his flute to win a
supper and bed from the rustics who lived on the highway. He obtained, it
is said, the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Padua; and on his return to
England, he went before a board of examiners to obtain the position of
surgeon's mate in the army or navy. He was at this time so poor that he
was obliged to borrow a suit of clothes to make a proper appearance before
the examiners. He failed in his examination, and then, in despair, he
pawned the borrowed clothes, to the great anger of the publisher who had
lent them. This failure in his medical examination, unfortunate as it then
seemed, secured him to literature. From that time his pen was constantly
busy for the reviews and magazines. His first work was _An Inquiry into
the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_, which, at least, prepared
the way for his future efforts. This appeared in 1759, and is
characterized by general knowledge and polish of style.

HIS POEMS.--In 1764 he published _The Traveller_, a moralizing poem upon
the condition of the people under the European governments. It was at once
and entirely successful; philosophical, elegant, and harmonious, it is
pitched in a key suited to the capacity of the world at large; and as, in
the general comparison of nations, he found abundant reason for lauding
England, it was esteemed patriotic, and was on that account popular. Many
of its lines have been constantly quoted since.

In 1770 appeared his _Deserted Village_, which was even more popular than
_The Traveller_; nor has this popularity flagged from that time down to
the present day. It is full of exquisite pictures of rural life and
manners. It is what it claims to be,--not an attempt at high art or epic,
but a gallery of cabinet pictures of rare finish and detail, painted by
the poet's heart and appealing to the sensibility of every reader. The
world knows it by heart,--the portraiture of the village schoolmaster and
his school; the beautiful picture of the country parson:

A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.

This latter is a worthy compan