pearls only. But most of his fellows
(Reynolds excepted) appreciated neither his drollery nor his
unselfishness,--had not been educated up to the type of Irishman that
with an artistic love of fun, is ever ready to promote the gayety of
nations by sacrificing itself in the interest of laughter. For none but
an artist can, without cracking a smile, offer up his wit on the altar
of his humor.

Prior describes Goldsmith as something under the middle size, sturdy,
active, apparently capable of endurance; pale, forehead and upper lip
rather projecting, face round, pitted with small-pox, and marked with
strong lines of thinking. But Reynolds's painting idealizes and
therefore best expresses the man, his twofold nature: on the one hand,
self-depreciatory, generous, and improvident; on the other, aspiring,
hungry for approval, laborious. Just such a man as would gild poverty
with a smile, decline patronage and force his last sixpence on a
street-singer, pile Pelion on Ossa for his publishers and turn out
cameos for art.

[Signature: Charles Mills Gayley]

THE VICAR'S FAMILY BECOME AMBITIOUS

From 'The Vicar of Wakefield'

I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon
temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The
distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I
had laid asleep, but not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were
filled with washes for the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an
enemy to the skin without doors, and the fire as a spoiler of the
complexion within. My wife observed that rising too early would hurt her
daughters' eyes, that working after dinner would redden their noses,
and she convinced me that the hands never looked so white as when they
did nothing. Instead therefore of finishing George's shirts, we now had
them new-modeling their old gauzes, or flourishing upon catgut. The poor
Miss Flamboroughs, their former gay companions, were cast off as mean
acquaintance, and the whole conversation ran upon high life and
high-lived company, with pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical
glasses.

But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come
to raise us into perfect sublimity. The tawny sibyl no sooner appeared
than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece, to cross her
hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always wise,
and could not hel