Advanced reader . never gives;But, though the whole world turn to coal,Then chiefiy lives. —Geors^e Herbert. WOTTON. 369 CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. How happy is he born and taught That serveth not anothers will;Whose armor is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill; Whose passions not his masters are; Whose soul is still prepared for death,Untied unto the worldly care Of public fame or private breath; Who envies none that chance doth raise. Or vice; who never understoodHow deepest wound are given by praise; Nor rules of state, but rules of good; Who hath his life from rumors free
Advanced reader . never gives;But, though the whole world turn to coal,Then chiefiy lives. —Geors^e Herbert. WOTTON. 369 CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. How happy is he born and taught That serveth not anothers will;Whose armor is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill; Whose passions not his masters are; Whose soul is still prepared for death,Untied unto the worldly care Of public fame or private breath; Who envies none that chance doth raise. Or vice; who never understoodHow deepest wound are given by praise; Nor rules of state, but rules of good; Who hath his life from rumors freed; Whose conscience is his strong retreat;Whose state can neither flatterers feed, Nor ruin make oppressors great; Who God doth late and early prayMore of his grace than gifts to lend, And entertains the harmless dayWith a religious book or friend;— This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;Lord of himself, though not of lands; And having nothing, yet hath all. —Sir Henry GOLDSMITH. Biographical.—Oliver Goldsmith was born November 29th, 1728, atPallas, county of Longford, Ireland. His father was a clergyman, w-hoseportrait the son is supposed to have given us in The Deserted Village andThe Vicar of Wakefield. Goldsmiths life is a marked exception to the usual 5 even tenor of a literary career. He was sent to local schools, and in timeto Trinity College, Dublin; but neither at school nor at the universitywas he an earnest student. Many a story is told of his idleness and wantof thought, and, above all, of his tenderness of heart. On leaving college,his friends proposed various schemes for his future, but they were all frus- 10 trated by his constitutional carelessness. At last, in 1752, after being atutor for a year, and making an attempt to study law in Dublin, he attendedthe Medical School at Edinburgh. Here it was the same story of idlenessand good-natured carelessness as in Dublin. From Edinburgh, in lessthan two years he removed
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