Having mentioned _The Traveller_, let us turn at once to this and to its exquisite companion—the two poems which give to Goldsmith his secure and eminent position in the literature of England. Our few detached criticisms on these old favourites shall not, at all events, be wearisome by their length. His comedies we design to leave untouched; they cannot be criticised without some review, however rapid, of the literature of the stage, and for this we have at present neither space nor inclination. A glance at _The Citizen of the World_ and _The Vicar of Wakefield_ will bring our subject to its conclusion. Every one remembers the anecdote connected with the first line of _The Traveller_— “Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.” Mr Irving shall relate it for us. “The appearance of _The Traveller_ at once altered Goldsmith’s intellectual standing in the estimation of society; but its effect upon the club, if we may judge from the account given by Hawkins, was almost ludicrous. They were lost in astonishment that a ‘newspaper essayist,’ and a ‘bookseller’s drudge,’ should have written such a poem. On the evening of its announcement, Goldsmith had gone away early, after ‘rattling away as usual;’ and they knew not how to reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene beauty, the easy grace, the sound good sense, and the occasional elevation of his poetry. They could scarcely believe that such magic numbers had flowed from a man to whom in general, says Johnson, ‘it was with difficulty they could give a hearing.’ ‘Well,’ exclaimed Chamier, ‘I do believe he wrote this poem himself; and, let me tell you, that is believing a great deal.’ “At the next meeting of the club, Chamier sounded the author a little about his poem. ‘Mr Goldsmith,’ said he, ‘what do you mean by the last word in the first line of your _Traveller_, “remote, unfriended, melancholy, _slow_?” Do you mean tardiness of locomotion?’—‘Yes,’ replied Goldsmith inconsiderately, being probably flurried at the moment. ‘No, sir,’ interposed his protecting friend Johnson, ‘you did not mean tardiness of locomotion; you meant that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.’—‘Ah!’ exclaimed Goldsmith, ‘_that_ was what I meant.’ Chamier immediately believed that Johnson himself had written the line, and a rumour became prevalent that he was the author of many of the finest passages.”