“Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey The rich man’s joys increase, the poor’s decay, ’Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land.” What follows will not easily bear a wise interpretation. Goldsmith speaks of commerce as if ships came in laden with nothing but gold—with “loads of freighted ore”—and finds that this imported wealth converts the ploughed fields into parks and pleasure-grounds. The writer of a history of England might have called to mind the Forest Laws, and the wide tracts of country kept waste, and, in some cases, _laid waste_ by our rude ancestors, for their rude sports. There is amongst the essays of Goldsmith a tale or allegory, which our readers may remember to have read in their youth, in some Speaker, or collection of Elegant Extracts. We are quite sure they have no acquaintance with it of a later date. This tale we will venture to revive. It belongs to so old-fashioned a species of literature, that it must needs be a novelty. We would quote it as an instance illustrative of the remarks we have made on the intellectual character of Goldsmith. It is wrong—argumentatively and logically wrong—yet no man would say that he was a mere repeater of other men’s words, who wrote _Asem, an Eastern Tale; or a Vindication of the Wisdom of Providence in the moral government of the World_. No one can read it without being prompted to think, which is good proof that the author thought when he wrote it—though he did not think very accurately. In the time of Goldsmith, the fashion was not extinct of seeing moral visions, and dreaming sagacious dreams. Wisdom delighted to speak in allegory. There were still to be found in those days, here and there, retired hermits, with long beards, hiding in solitary caves, and living on the simplest herbs—cold water and a salad; and there were still lingering on the earth genii, or other stupendous and supernatural beings, who occasionally visited these favoured mortals, teaching them surpassing wisdom, and illustrating their lessons in the most marvellous manner. Asem was such a hermit. Yet, all hermit and Mussulman as he was, he bears a strong resemblance to the Goldsmith family. “From the tenderness of his disposition, he exhausted all his fortune in relieving the wants of the distressed.” Having reduced himself to want, he is shocked to find that one who comes to beg, is not so welcome as when he came to give. Accordingly, he turns with wrath from an ungrateful world.