pid decay, when literature was totally neglected, and all was luxury and imbecility at home. At the end of Books V. and VII. of his Lusiad, he severely upbraids the Nobility for their barbarous ignorance. He died, neglected, in a workhouse, a few months before his country fell under the yoke of Philip II. of Spain, whose policy in Portugal was of the same kind with that which he exercised in the Netherlands, endeavouring to secure submission by severity, with the view of reducing them beneath the possibility of a successful revolt.

131. Beheld th' Ulysses of his age return

To Tago's banks, &c.] This title is given by the Portuguese historians to Don John, one of the younger sons of John I. of Portugal, who had visited every Court of Europe. The same title is no less due to the present illustrious descendant of his family, the Duke of Lafoens. His Grace, who has within these few years returned to his native country, was about twenty-two years absent from it. During the late war, he was a volunteer in the army of the Empress Queen, in which he served as lieutenant-general, and particularly distinguished himself at the battle of Maxen, where the Prussians were defeated. After the peace, he not only visited every court of Europe, most of whose languages he speaks fluently, but also travelled to Turkey and Egypt, and even to Lapland. His Grace is no less distinguished by his taste for the Belles Lettres, than for his extensive knowledge of History and Science.

EPISTLE XV.

Page 133. OLIVER, or, as he was commonly called, DOCTOR GOLDSMITH, was the third son of a clergyman in Ireland, and born 1729, at Elphin in the county of Roscommon. Having received his classical instruction at the school of Mr. Hughes, he was admitted a sizer of Trinity College, Dublin; where, though not till two years after the ordinary period, he took the first degree in arts. Turning his thoughts to the study of medicine, he proceeded to Edinburgh for that purpose; but was soon obliged to leave Scotland, through an embarrassment in which his good nature had involved him, and from which he was set free, by his two fellow-students, Laughlin Maclane and Dr. Sleigh. Thence, passing over to Holland, he visited Brussels, Strasburgh, and Louvain, and having, in the last university, taken the degree of Bachelor in Physic, he proceeded on to Geneva. The greater part of this tour he travelled on foot, subsisting on such casual hospitalities as fell in his way. His learning was a sufficient passport to most of the religious houses, and the music of his flute to the sheds of the peasants.

During his stay at Geneva, where he engaged himself as Tutor to an attorney's clerk just come to a fortune, he improved his poetic talents, and thence transmitted to his brother the first sketch of his Tra

veller. From Switzerland, he accompanied his pupil to the South of France, where, being unhandsomely discharged, he had fresh difficulties to encounter. Shaping his course towards England, he at length reached the metropolis, possessed only of two-pence. Destitute of every resource, he sought employment as a shopman, and at length was employed by a chymist. In this situation he continued, till finding his old friend Dr. Sleigh, he was recommended by him to assist Dr. Milner in his Academy at Peckham. Here, commencing writer, he was engaged by Mr. Griffiths in the Monthly Review; and the better to carry on his literary pursuits, he took lodgings in London. Green Arbor Court in the Old Bailey, was the first situation he chose; but on being employed by Newbery in the Ledger, and becoming more known, he moved thence to the Temple. The publication of his Traveller, Vicar of Wakefield, (in which he pourtrayed himself) and Good-natured Man, acquired him considerable reputation: which the Deserted Village augmented. His other Comedy was also attended with unexpected success. Indeed such now was his literary fame that he is said to have cleared in one year by his pen no less à sum than 1800l. His imprudencies, however, kept pace with his gains, for, having an unfortunate attachment to gaming, he became a constant dupe of the crafty and unprincipled.

Depending still on his pen, he projected a Dic. tionary of the Sciences, and actually printed the pro

spectus of his plan, but not succeeding as he wished, the scheme was reluctantly dropped.

Having at times been afflicted with the stranguary, and harrassed with various vexations, he fell into a state of depondence. This being followed by a nervous fever, which was improperly treated, he was cut off in the 45th year of his age. As he lived in esteem with some amongst the first characters of the time, he was to have been buried by them in Westminster Abbey, but the design was somehow relinquished, and his body interred in the Temple. A monument, however, in the Abbey, is erected to his memory, with an inscription by Johnson, in Latin.

This Epistle was introduced by the following DE

DICATION:

TO THE

REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

DEAR SIR,

I AM sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a Dedi. cation; and perhaps it demands an excuse, thus to prefix your name to my attempts which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands, that it is addressed to a man, who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year.

I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you have left the field of Ambition, where the laborers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.

Poetry makes a principle amusement among unpolished nations: but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, painting and music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival poetry, and at length supplant her; they engross all that favor once shewn to her, and though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birth-right.

Yet, however, this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favor of blank verse, and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it, and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever taikative.

But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous-I mean party Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find plea