"Here, Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar was mellow, Go fetch me some clay--I will make an odd fellow: Right and wrong shall be jumbled, much gold and some dross, Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross; Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions, A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions; Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking, Turn'd to _learning_ and _gaming_, _religion_, and _raking_, With the love of a wench, let his writings be chaste; Tip his tongue with strange matters, his lips with fine taste; That the rake and the poet o'er all may prevail, Set fire to the head and set fire to the tail; For the joy of each sex on the world I'll bestow it, This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet. Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame, And among brother mortals be Goldsmith his name; When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear, You, _Hermes_, shall fetch him, to make us sport here." The charge of raking, so repeatedly advanced in the foregoing lines, must be considered a sportive one, founded, perhaps, on an incident or two within Garrick's knowledge, but not borne out by the course of Goldsmith's life. He seems to have had a tender sentiment for the sex, but perfectly free from libertinism. Neither was he an habitual gamester. The strictest scrutiny has detected no settled vice of the kind. He was fond of a game of cards, but an unskillful and careless player. Cards in those days were universally introduced into society. High play was, in fact, a fashionable amusement, as at one time was deep drinking; and a man might occasionally lose large sums, and be beguiled into deep potations, without incurring the character of a gamester or a drunkard. Poor Goldsmith, on his advent into high society, assumed fine notions with fine clothes; he was thrown occasionally among high players, men of fortune who could sport their cool hundreds as carelessly as his early comrades at Ballymahon could their half crowns. Being at all times magnificent in money matters, he may have played with them in their own way, without considering that what was sport to them to him was ruin. Indeed part of his financial embarrassments may have arisen from losses of the kind, incurred inadvertently, not in the indulgence of a habit. "I do not believe Goldsmith to have deserved the name of gamester," said one of his contemporaries; "he liked cards very well, as other people do, and lost and won occasionally; but as far as I saw or heard, and I had many opportunities of hearing, never any considerable sum. If he gamed with any one, it was probably with Beauclerc, but I do not know that such was the case."