"His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth."
A little later he speaks of
"Every pang that folly pays to pride."
There is a depth in the man who could write:
"Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain;
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my grief—and God has given my share—
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down."
How pretty and how pathetic is the picture in this poem of the end that he had fancied for his days! A thousand and a thousand times the ceaseless humanity, seeking only love, endears the man. Mark the sweet, true, and sublime ideal:
"Angels around befriending Virtue's friend:
Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His Heaven commences ere the world be past!"
In simplicity Goldsmith equals Gray. There is a Miltonic dignity truly classical in the line—
"The sad historian of the pensive plain."