Travelling by the swift power of imagination, we looked in at _Wills and Buttons_; beheld the honoured chair that was set apart for the use of Dryden; and watched Pope, then a boy, lisping in numbers, regarding his great master with filial reverence, as he delivered his critical aphorisms to the assembled wits. Nor did we miss the Birch-Rod that “the bard whom pilfer'd pastoral renown” hung up at Buttons to chastise “tuneful Alexis of the Thames' fair side,” his own back smarting from some satirical twigs that little Alexis had liberally laid on! We saw St. Patrick's Dean “steal” to his pint of wine with the accomplished Addison; and heard Gay, Arbuthnot, and Boling-broke, in witty conclave, compare lyrical notes for the Beggar's Opera--not forgetting the joyous cheer that welcomed “King Colley” to his midnight troop of titled revellers, after the curtain had dropped on Fondle wife and Foppington. And, hey presto! snugly seated at the Mitre, we found Doctor Johnson, lemon in hand, demanding of Goldsmith, *-- * If ever an author, whether considered as a poet, a critic, an historian, or a dramatist, deserved the name of a classic, it was Oliver Goldsmith. His two great ethic poems, “The Traveller,” and “The Deserted Village,” for sublimity of thought, truth of reasoning, and poetical beauty, fairly place him by the side of Pope. The simile of the bird teaching its young to fly, and that beginning with “As some tall cliffy” have rarely been equalled, and never surpassed. For exquisite humour and enchanting simplicity of style, his essays may compare with the happiest effusions of Addison; and his “Vicar of Wakefield,” though a novel, has advanced the cause of religion and virtue, and may be read with as much profit as the most orthodox sermon that was ever penned. As a dramatist, he excelled all his contemporaries in originality, character, and humour. As long as a true taste for literature shall prevail, Goldsmith will rank as one of its brightest ornaments: for while he delighted the imagination, and alternately moved the heart to joy or sorrow, he “gave ardour to virtue and confidence to truth.” A tale of woe was a certain passport to his compassion; and he has given his last guinea to an indigent suppliant.