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 controlled the destinies of the country. So, for more than twenty years, the old champion of letters and of humanity dwelt near the Lake of Geneva, with more real freedom and comfort and leisure than he had ever enjoyed in his life; and his at length settled residence now became a point of attraction for pilgrims who desired to do homage to his fame. Among other noted Englishmen came Goldsmith. English readers know very well that, as a young man, the author of the "Traveller" wandered, almost penniless, but always cheerful and observant, over great part of Europe. In 1759 he undertook to write for a publisher a life of Voltaire, which appeared in an obscure magazine. In this notice—which contains, as Goldsmith's biographer, Forster, thinks, the best account existing of Voltaire's residence in England—he says that he was in company with the French poet in Paris. That, as our readers know, could not have been; and Forster considers that the passage may have been tampered with by the editor of the magazine, or may even have been inadvertently so recorded by Goldsmith himself, but does not doubt that the meeting, the account of which thus goes on, took place at "The Delights:"—

"As a companion, no man ever exceeded him when he pleased to lead the conversation; which, however, was not always the case. In company which he either disliked or despised, few could be more reserved than he; but when he was warmed in discourse, and had got over a hesitating manner which sometimes he was subject to, it was rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed insensibly to gather beauty; every muscle in it had meaning, and his eye beamed with unusual brightness.

"The person who writes this memoir, who had the honour and the pleasure of being his acquaintance, remembers to