he had not the self-command to keep it quiet. As fast as he clambered out of one pitfall he fell into another. He dressed himself like a lump of gilt gingerbread; his thoughts on paper were dressed with exquisite simplicity.

While his designs were generally bad-the "Traveller," perhaps excepted-his execution was always good. In his books he was a moralist, in his habits a rake: as an administrator of his affairs, he was slobbering, undisciplined, and wasteful as a compiler, he proved himself master of the arts of selection, condensation, and intellectual economy. We love the man, but fail to respect him. He would coin his heart into gold for beggars, and forget legitimate debts to butcher and baker. He would clothe the naked, but cheat the tailor who supplied the garb. If Goldsmith had his follies and frailties, it may, in charity, be said, that he possessed redeeming virtues. No man ever yet rose from the perusal of his writings without feeling heart and mind enlarged by the inculcations. of benevolence with which they are replete. When dying he left posterity a great bequest. Our souls are permeated by the glow of his own benignant spirit; a sympathy for human sufferings, with an enlarged charity, are awakened; a generous forbearance fostered. A perfect portrait of a Christian priest is presented to us in the "Vicar of Wakefield,”—one who bore the domestic sorrows, with which it pleased God to bruise him, in that true Christian and philosophic spirit already exemplified by Job. By

no part of Goldsmith's writings do we find the cheek of virgin innocence urged to blush. Always pleasing, simple, and true to Nature, he never resorted to sensationalism for effect. By the spill he alone could wield we are alternately moved to tears

or exhilarated by joyous laughter. He trusted to his playful humour to win; to the sparks of his genial fancy to dazzle; to the strokes of his vigorous philosophy to convince. Closely identified with the Church of the ascendancy, nowhere can he be detected pandering to that fell spirit of religious bigotry which ran riot. in days when Ireland lay bound beneath the hoof of an iniquitous code; and a partisan press, and profaned pulpit, co-operated to defame it. The patriot-voice of Ireland was tongue-tied, and Grattan had not yet sounded the trumpet of her resurrection. But no man who has studied the "Deserted Village can fail to see how keenly the wrongs of his country touched Goldsmith's compassionate heart, and the hard struggle it cost him to restrain the emotions which moved his patriot soul.

Assuredly there never lived a man of a less mercenary nature. When the Duke of Northumberland was coming to Ireland he sent for Goldsmith, and told him he would be glad to do him any kindness; to which Goldsmith replied, that he had a brother there, a clergyman, who needed help; but he asked nothing for himself. The narrator of this interview calls him an idiot for thus trifling with his fortune, and putting back the hand that was held out to assist him. When a note for 1007. reached him from the publisher of the "Deserted Village," although it was the sum agreed upon for the piece, he magnanimously returned it, because some officious friend remarked it was a large price for so short a poem. "It is more than the honest man can

afford," said Goldsmith, or the piece is worth.”

It has often been said that until the erection of Foley's statue of Goldsmith in Dublin, and the recent formation of the Goldsmith Club, no efforts had been made in Ireland

cen

THAT kingdom of Naples which has fallen to pieces in our time through its own corruption, was originally founded by the same vigorous Norman race that infused new blood into Saxon England, and continued for several turies one of the most important states in the European commonwealth. But the kings of Naples. were powerful only from the weakness of their neighbours. If, indeed, they could have united the whole of Italy under their sceptre, as at one time seemed not improbable, they might perhaps have resisted the combined assaults of France and Spain. The court of Rome, however, in its jealousy of its temporal power, prevented the consolidation of any kingdom in Italy till the present age, and hence when, in the fifteenth century, the powerful monarchs of France and Spain had subdued the petty states of those countries, the weakness of Italy, still divided against itself, invited their ambition to an easy conquest. The consequences were disastrous for the Italians, who became the victims first of one and then of the other belligerent, and found themselves at length handed over to a long succession of foreign viceroys, whose stupid tyranny blighted the prosperity of Italy and degraded her people.

We shall be indulgent to the deficiencies of the Italians if we remember that they were robbed of their liberties when those of England were yet in their precarious infancy. How different might our own history have been if Queen Mary had borne a son to that Philip

of Spain whom his father made King of Naples, in order that he might be a suitable match for the English heiress! The Spaniards would have paid small regard to the stipulations of the marriage treaty, and it is very possible that a viceroy of the house of Austria might have oppressed a Northern as well as a Southern dependency of the haughty Crown of Spain and the Indies.

The same luckless gift of beauty which of old attracted the spoilers to Italy now yearly draws more harmless hosts of tourists to her shores. And since, as Mr. Ruskin says, every beautiful object is brightened by rays from the lamp of memory, it is natural to feel interested in the history of those lovely scenes, particularly as it is full of romantic and tragical events, and offers many curious parallels and contrasts to the history of England.

After the dissolution of Roman Empire, the country now known as the kingdom of Naples passed into the possession of a tribe from the shores of the Baltic, who derived their name of Lombards, or longbeards, from their wild and savage aspect. These barbarians were converted to Christianity by a bishop appropriately named Barbatus, who is the patron saint of Benevento, and may be recommended in the same capacity to our bearded clergymen—an increasing company. The chieftains of the Lombards were called dukes, a title borrowed from the governors of provinces under the later emperors. The principal dukes were those of Benevento, who withstood Charles the Great himself,

whose empire extended from the Ebro to the Elbe. The city of Naples, notwithstanding, maintained its independence of the Lombard princes, and an interesting anecdote is related respecting one of the obscure wars between them.

The Greek Emperor Constans was the last of the Cæsars to visit the ancient capital of the empire. On his way to Rome he landed with an army at Naples, and as Naples still belonged to the sovereigns of Constantinople, he undertook to rid his subjects of their unfriendly neighbours.

Beneventum being besieged by Constans, the Lombard duke sent his steward to solicit assistance from his fellow-countrymen in the North, but, after having fulfilled his commission, the messenger was taken prisoner by the enemy as he was attempting to re-enter the city. The crafty Greek, who already contemplated raising the siege, now hoped to effect by stratagem what he had failed to do by force. He brought his captive before the walls, and bade him advise his friends to surrender, and to assure them that no relief was to be expected. But the brave fellow, instead of this, told the duke that the king his father was within a day's march, and would come to his rescue on the morrow. He had only time to say this, and to commend to his prince's care his wife and children, who he well knew would soon be a widow and orphans, when the ungenerous Constans caused his head to be struck off and cast within the city from one of the military engines. It was brought to the duke, who recognized the disfigured countenance of his faithful servant, bathed it with his tears, kissed the lifeless lips, and erected a splendid tomb over the body, in memory of such a noble example of courage and self-devotion.

The

Greeks and Lombards subsequently

arranged their disputes, and we read of an embassy from Constantinople which brought the duke, among other presents, a handsome comb and scissors, no doubt as a delicate hint that his grace's long beard would be improved by being trimmed.

Nor was the adornment of the inner man neglected by the Lombards, if we may trust an old author, who says, "while Louis reigned in France," i.e., in the ninth century, "thirty-two philosophers were at Benevento." If philosophers were as troublesome then as now, we might not envy a city in which such a social-science congress was in permanent session. Most likely, however, these so-called philosophers were little more than professors of the three R.'s, as they are called— reading, writing, and arithmetic, which were rare accomplishments at that time. We may imagine the gross ignorance which prevailed during the last centuries of the first thousand years of our era from the fact that the illustrious Charlemagne, who restored the empire of the West, was unable to write; while Gregory II., the founder of the temporal power, was so little versed in Bible history, that in a solemn letter to the Greek Emperor Leo, he exhorts that image-breaking prince to take warning from the example of Hezekiah, a wicked king who was smitten with leprosy, for profanely destroying the brazen serpent of Moses !

Persons who desired to lead a quiet life, and improve their minds, had no other refuge open to them than the monasteries, which were for a long time the great centres of religion and civilization. That was

the golden age of monastic sanctity, when the recluses of Ireland issued from their solitude and became the pioneers of Christianity through central and southern Europe. I may be indulged in this passing re