In thinking of those one might wish to have been, many people will exclaim, ‘Surely, you would like to have been Shakspeare?’ Would Garrick have consented to the change? No, nor should he; for the applause which he received, and on which he lived, was more adapted to his genius and taste. If Garrick had agreed to be Shakspeare, he would have made it a previous condition that he was to be a better player. He would have insisted on taking some higher part than _Polonius_ or the _Grave-digger_. Ben Jonson and his companions at the Mermaid would not have known their old friend Will in his new disguise. The modern Roscius would have scouted the halting player. He would have shrunk from the parts of the inspired poet. If others were unlike us, we feel it as a presumption and an impertinence to usurp their place; if they were like us, it seems a work of supererogation. We are not to be cozened out of our existence for nothing. It has been ingeniously urged, as an objection to having been Milton, that ‘then we should not have had the pleasure of reading Paradise Lost.’ Perhaps I should incline to draw lots with Pope, but that he was deformed, and did not sufficiently relish Milton and Shakspeare. As it is, we can enjoy his verses and their’s too. Why, having these, need we ever be dissatisfied with ourselves? Goldsmith is a person whom I considerably affect, notwithstanding his blunders and his misfortunes. The author of the _Vicar of Wakefield_, and of _Retaliation_, is one whose temper must have had something eminently amiable, delightful, gay, and happy in it. ‘A certain tender bloom his fame o’erspreads.’