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GOLDSMITH
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GOLDSMITH , See also:OLIVER
however, for this See also:time-honoured version of the circumstances, it has of See also:late years been discovered that as See also:early as See also:October 1762 Goldsmith had already sold a third of the See also:Vicar to-one See also:Benjamin See also:Collins of See also:Salisbury, a printer, by whom it was eventually printed for F. Newbery, and it is difficult to reconcile this fact with See also: It wants, not merely that See also:probability which ought to be found in a See also:tale of See also:common English life, but that consistency which ought to be found even in the wildest fiction about witches, giants and fairies. But the earlier chapters have all the sweetness of See also:pastoral See also:poetry, together with all the vivacity of See also:comedy. See also:Moses and his See also:spectacles, the vicar and his monogamy, the sharper and his See also:cosmogony, the See also:squire proving from See also:Aristotle that relatives are related, Olivia preparing herself for the arduous task of converting a rakish See also:lover by studying the controversy between See also:Robinson Crusoe and See also:Friday, the great ladies with their See also:scandal about See also:Sir Tomkyn's amours and Dr Burdock's verses, and Mr Burchell with his " Fudge," have caused as much harmless mirth as has ever been caused by See also:matter packed into so small a number of pages. The latter See also:part of the tale is unworthy of the beginning. As we approach the See also:catastrophe, the absurdities See also:lie thicker and thicker, and the gleams of pleasantry become rarer and rarer. The success which had attended Goldsmith as a novelist emboldened him to try his See also:fortune as a dramatist. He wrote the Good Natur'd See also:Man, a piece which had a worse See also:fate than it deserved. See also:Garrick refused to produce it at See also:Drury See also:Lane. It was acted at Covent See also:Garden in See also:January 1768, but was coldly received. The author, however, cleared by his benefit nights, and by the See also:sale of the See also:copyright, no less than L500, five times as much as he had made by the Traveller and the Vicar of Wakefield together. The See also:plot of the Good Natur'd Man is, like almost all Goldsmith's plots, very See also:ill constructed. But some passages are exquisitely ludicrous,—much more ludicrous indeed than suited the See also:taste of the See also:town at that time. A canting, mawkish See also:play, entitled False Delicacy, had just been produced, and sentimentality was all the mode. During some years more tears were See also:shed at comedies than at tragedies; and a pleasantry which moved the See also:audience to anything more than a See also:grave smile was reprobated as See also:low. It is not See also:strange, therefore, that the very best See also:scene in the Good Natur'd Man, that in which See also:Miss Richland finds her lover attended by the See also:bailiff and the bailiff's follower in full See also:court dresses, should have been mercilessly hissed, and should have been omitted after the first See also:night, not to be restored for several years. In May 1770 appeared the Deserted See also:Village. In See also:mere diction and versification this celebrated poem is fully equal, perhaps See also:superior, to the Traveller; and it is generally preferred to the from See also:Sea-See also:coal Lane by a dizzy See also:ladder of flagstones called Break-See also:neck Steps. See also:Green See also:Arbour Court and the ascent have long diasppeared. Here, at See also:thirty, the unlucky adventurer sat See also:clown to toil like a See also:galley slave. Already, in 1758, during his first bondage to letters, he had translated Marteilhe's remarkable See also:Memoirs of a See also:Protestant, Condemned to the Galleys of See also:France for his Religion. In the years that now succeeded he sent to the See also:press some things which have survived, and many which have perished. He produced articles for reviews, magazines and See also:newspapers; See also:children's books, which, See also:bound in gilt See also:paper and adorned with hideous woodcuts, appeared in the window of Newbery's once far-famed See also:shop at the corner of See also:Saint See also:Paul's See also:churchyard; An Inquiry into the See also:State of Polite Learning in See also:Europe, which, though of little or no value, is still reprinted among his See also:works; a See also:volume of essays entitled The See also:Bee; a Life of Beau See also:Nash; a superficial and incorrect, but very readable, See also:History of See also:England, in a See also:series of letters purporting to be addressed by a nobleman to his son; and some very lively and amusing sketches of See also:London Society in another series of letters purporting to be addressed by a See also:Chinese traveller to his See also:friends. All these works were See also:anonymous; but some of them were well known to be Goldsmith's; and he gradually See also:rose in the estimation of the booksellers for whom he drudged. He was, indeed, emphatically a popular writer. For accurate See also:research or grave disquisition he was not well qualified by nature or by See also:education. He knew nothing accurately; his See also:reading had been desultory; nor had he meditated deeply on what he had read. He had seen much of the See also:world; but he had noticed and retained little more of what he had seen than some See also:grotesque incidents and characters which had happened to strike his See also:fancy. But, though his mind was very scantily stored with materials, he used what materials he had in such a way as to produce a wonderful effect. There have been many greater writers; but perhaps no writer was ever more uniformly agree-able. His See also:style was always pure and easy, and, on proper occasions, pointed and energetic. His narratives were always amusing, his descriptions always picturesque, his See also:humour See also:rich and joyous, yet not without an occasional tinge of amiable sadness. About everything that he wrote, serious or sportive, there was a certain natural See also:grace and decorum, hardly to be expected from a man a great part of whose life had been passed among thieves and beggars, See also:street-walkers and merryandrews, in those squalid See also:dens which are the reproach of great capitals. As his name gradually became known, the circle of his acquaintance widened. He was introduced to Johnson, who was then considered as the first of living English writers; to See also:Reynolds, the first of English painters; and to See also:Burke, who had not yet entered See also:parliament, but had distinguished himself greatly by his writings and by the eloquence of his conversation. With these eminent men Goldsmith became intimate. In 1763 he was one of the nine See also:original members of that celebrated fraternity which has sometimes been called the Literary See also:Club, but which has always disclaimed that epithet, and still glories in the simple name of the Club. By this date Goldsmith had quitted his miserable dwelling at the See also:top of Breakneck Steps, and, after living for some time at No. 6 See also:Wine See also:Office Court, See also:Fleet Street, had moved into the See also:Temple. But he was still often reduced to pitiable shifts, the most popular of which is connected with the sale of his solitary novel, the Vicar of Wakefield. Towards the See also:close of 1764(?) his See also:rent is alleged to have been so long in arrear that his landlady one See also:morning called in the help of a See also:sheriff's officer. The debtor, in great perplexity, despatched a messenger to Johnson; and Johnson, always friendly, though often surly, sent back the messenger with a See also:guinea, and promised to follow speedily.,, He came, and found that Goldsmith had changed the guinea, and was railing at the landlady over a See also:bottle of See also:Madeira. Johnson put the See also:cork into the bottle, and entreated his friend to consider calmly how See also:money was to be procured. Goldsmith said that he had a novel ready for the press. Johnson glanced at the See also:manuscript. saw that there were good things in it,took it to a bookseller, sold it for £6o and soon returned with the money. The rent was paid; and the sheriff's officer withdrew. (Unfortunately, Traveller by that large class of readers who think, with Bayes Patagonians, monkeys that preach sermons, nightingales that repeat long conversations. " If he can tell a See also:horse from a cow," said Johnson, " that is the extent of his knowledge of See also:zoology." How little Goldsmith was qualified to write about the See also:physical sciences is sufficiently proved by two anecdotes. He on one occasion denied that the See also:sun is longer in the See also:northern than in the See also:southern signs. It was vain to cite the authority of See also:Maupertuis. " Maupertuis!" he cried, " I understand those matters better than Maupertuis." On another occasion he, in See also:defiance of the See also:evidence of his own senses, maintained obstinately, and even angrily, that he chewed his See also:dinner by moving his upper See also:jaw. Yet, ignorant as Goldsmith was, few writers have done more to make the first steps in the laborious road to knowledge easy and pleasant. His compilations are widely distinguished from the compilations of See also:ordinary bookmakers. He was a great, perhaps an unequalled, See also:master of the arts of selection and condensation. In these respects his histories of See also:Rome and of England, and still more his own abridgments of these histories, well deserved to be studied. In general nothing is less attractive than an See also:epitome; but the epitomes of Goldsmith, even when most concise, are always amusing; and to read them is considered by intelligent children not as a task but as a See also:pleasure. Goldsmith might now be considered as a prosperous man. He had the means of living in comfort, and even in what to one who had so often slept in barns and on bulks must have been luxury. His fame was great and was constantly rising. He lived in what was intellectually far the best society of the See also:kingdom, in a society in which no See also:talent or accomplishment was wanting, and in which the See also:art of conversation was cultivated with splendid success. There probably were never four talkers more admirable in four different ways than Johnson, Burke, Beauclerk and Garrick; and Goldsmith was on terms of intimacy with all the four. He aspired to See also:share in their colloquial renown, but never was ambition more unfortunate. It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity and grace should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. But on this point the evidence is overwhelming. So extraordinary was the contrast between Goldsmith's published works and the See also:silly things which he said, that See also:Horace See also:Walpole described him as an inspired idiot. " Noll," said Garrick, " wrote like an See also:angel, and talked like poor See also:Poll." See also:Chamier declared that it was a hard exercise of faith to believe that so foolish a chatterer could have really written the Traveller. Even See also:Boswell could say, with contemptuous compassion, that he liked very well to hear honest Goldsmith run on. " Yes, sir," said Johnson, " but he should not like to hear him-self." Minds differ as See also:rivers differ. There are transparent and sparkling rivers from which it is delightful to drink as they flow; to such rivers the minds of such men as Burke and Johnson may be. compared. But there are rivers of which the See also:water when first See also:drawn is turbid and See also:noisome, but becomes pellucid as crystal and delicious to the taste, if it be suffered to stand till it has deposited a sediment; and such a See also:river is a type of the mind of Goldsmith. His first thoughts on every subject were confused even to absurdity, but they required only a little time to work themselves clear. When he wrote they had that time, and therefore his readers pronounced him a man of See also:genius; but when he talked he talked nonsense and made himself the laughing-stock of his hearers. He was painfully sensible of his inferiority in conversation; he See also:felt every failure keenly; yet he had not sufficient See also:judgment and self-command to hold his See also:tongue. His See also:animal See also:spirits and vanity were always impelling him to try to do the one thing which he could not do. After every See also:attempt he felt that he had exposed himself, and writhed with shame and vexation; yet the next moment he began again. His associates seem to have regarded him with kindness, which, in spite of their admiration of his writings, was not unmixed with contempt. In truth; . there was in his character much to love, but very little to respect. His See also:heart was soft even to weakness: in the See also:Rehearsal, that the only use of a plot is to bring in See also:fine things. More discerning See also:judges, however, while they admire the beauty of the details, are shocked by one unpardonable See also:fault which pervades the whole. The fault which we mean is not that theory about See also:wealth and luxury which has so often been censured by political economists. The theory is indeed false; but the poem, considered merely as a poem, is not necessarily the worse on that See also:account. The finest poem in the Latin language--indeed, the finest didactic poem in any language—was written in See also:defence of the silliest and meanest of all systems of natural and moral See also:philosophy. A poet may easily be pardoned for reasoning ill; but he cannot be pardoned for describing ill, for observing the world in which he lives so carelessly that his portraits See also:bear no resemblance to the originals, for exhibiting as copies from real life monstrous combinations of things which never were and never could be found together. What would be thought of a painter who should mix See also:August and January in one landscape, who should introduce a frozen river into a See also:harvest scene ? Would it be a sufficient defence of such a picture to say that every part was exquisitely coloured, that the green hedges, the See also:apple-trees loaded with See also:fruit, the waggons reeling under the yellow sheaves, and the sun-burned reapers wiping their fore-heads were very fine, and that the See also:ice and the boys sliding were also very fine ? To such a picture the Descried Village bears a great resemblance. It is made up of incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two different countries and to two different stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly never seen in his native See also:island such a rural See also:paradise, such a seat of plenty, content and tranquillity, as his See also:Auburn. He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of such a paradise turned out of their homes in one See also:day and forced' to emigrate in a See also:body to See also:America. The See also:hamlet he had probably seen in See also:Kent; the See also:ejectment he had probably seen in See also:Munster; but by joining the two, he has produced something which never was and never will be seen in any part of the world. In 1773 Goldsmith tried his See also:chance at Covent Garden with a second play, She Stoops to Conquer. The manager was, not without great difficulty, induced to bring this piece out. The sentimental comedy still reigned, and Goldsmith's comedies were not sentimental. The Good Natur'd Man had been too funny to succeed; yet the mirth of the Good Natur'd Man was sober when compared with the rich drollery of She Stoops to Conquer, which is, in truth, an incomparable See also:farce in five acts. On this occasion, however, genius triumphed. See also:Pit, boxes and galleries were in a See also:constant roar of See also:laughter. If any bigoted admirer of See also:Kelly and See also:Cumberland ventured to hiss or groan, he was speedily silenced by a general cry of " turn him out," or " throw him over." Later generations have confirmed the See also:verdict which was pronounced on that night.
While Goldsmith was See also:writing the Deserted Village and She Stoops to Conquer, he was employed on works of a very different See also:kind—works from which he derived little reputation but much profit. He compiled for the use of See also:schools a History of Rome, by which he made £25o; a History of England, by which he made Soo; a History of See also:Greece, for which he received 250; a Natural History, for which the booksellers covenanted to pay him Soo guineas. These works he produced without any elaborate research, by merely selecting, abridging and translating into his own clear, pure and flowing language, what he found in books well known to the world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls. He committed some strange blunders, for he knew nothing with accuracy. Thus, in his History of England, he tells us that See also:Naseby is in See also:Yorkshire; nor did he correct this See also:mistake when the book was reprinted. He was very nearly hoaxed into putting into the History of Greece an account of a See also:battle between See also: But there is not the least See also:reason to believe that this bad See also:passion, though it sometimes made him wince and utter fretful exclamations, ever impelled him to injure by wicked arts the reputation of any of his rivals. The truth probably is that he was not more envious, but merely less prudent, than his neighbours. His heart was on his lips. All those small jealousies, which are but too common among men of letters, but which a man of letters who is also a man of the world does his best to conceal, Goldsmith avowed with the simplicity of a See also:child.. When he was envious, instead of affecting indifference, instead of damning with faint praise, instead of doing injuries slyly and in the dark, he told everybody that he was envious. " Do not, pray, do not, talk of Johnson in such terms," he said to Boswell; " you See also:harrow up my very soul." See also:George See also:Steevens and Cumberland were men far too cunning to say such a thing. They would have echoed the praises of the man whom they envied, and then have sent to the newspapers anonymous libels upon him. Both what was good and what was bad in Goldsmith's character was to his associates a perfect See also:security that he would "never commit such villainy. He was neither ill-natured enough, nor long-headed enough, to be guilty of any malicious See also:act which required contrivance and disguise. Goldsmith has sometimes been represented as a man of genius, cruelly treated by the world, and doomed to struggle with difficulties, which at last See also:broke his heart. But no See also:representation can be more remote from the truth. He did, indeed, go through much See also:sharp misery before he had done anything considerable in literature. But after his name had appeared on the See also:title-See also:page of the Traveller, he had none but himself to blame for his distresses. His See also:average income; during the last seven years of his life, certainly exceeded £400 a See also:year, and £400 a year ranked, among the incomes of that day, at least as high as £800 a year would rank at See also:present. A single man living in the Temple, with £400 a year, might then be called opulent. Not one in ten of the See also:young gentlemen of good families who were studying the See also:law there had so much. But all the wealth which See also:Lord See also:Clive had brought from See also:Bengal and Sir See also:Lawrence Dundas from See also:Germany, joined together, would not have sufficed for Goldsmith. He spent twice as much as he had. He wore fine clothes, gave dinners of several courses, paid court to venal beauties. He had also, it should be remembered, to the See also:honour of his heart, though not of his See also:head, a guinea, or five, or ten, according to the state of his See also:purse, ready for any tale of See also:distress, true or false. But it was not in See also:dress or feasting, in promiscuous amours or promiscuous charities, that his See also:chief expense See also:lay. He had been from boyhood a gambler, and at once the most sanguine and the most unskilful of gamblers. For a time he put off the day of inevitable ruin by temporary expedients. He obtained advances from booksellers by promising to execute works which he never began. But at length this source of See also:supply failed. He owed more than £2000; and he saw no See also:hope of extrication from his embarrassments. His spirits and See also:health gave way. He was attacked by a See also:nervous See also:fever, which he thought himself competent to treat. It would have been happy for him if his medical skill had been appreciated as justly by himself as by others. Notwithstanding the degree which he pretended to have received on the See also:continent, he could procure no patients. " I do not practise," he once said; " I make it a See also:rule to prescribe only for my friends." " Pray, dear See also:Doctor," said Beauclerk, " alter your rule; and prescribe only for your enemies." Goldsmith, now, in spite of this excellent See also:advice, prescribed for himself. The remedy aggravated the malady. The sick man was induced to See also:call in real physicians; and they at one time imagined that they had cured the disease. Still his weakness and restlessness continued. He could get no See also:sleep. He could take no See also:food. " You are worse," said one of his medical attendants, " than you should be from the degree of fever which you have. Is your mind at ease?" "No; it isnot," were the last recorded words of Oliver Goldsmith. He died on the 4th of See also:April 1774, in his See also:forty-See also:sixth year. He was laid in the churchyard of the Temple; but the spot was not marked by any inscription and is now forgotten. The See also:coffin was followed by Burke and Reynolds. Both these great men were sincere mourners. Burke, when he heard of Goldsmith's See also:death, had burst into a See also:flood of tears. Reynolds had been so much moved by the See also:news that he had flung aside his See also:brush and See also:palette for the day. A See also:short time after Goldsmith's death, a little poem appeared, which will, as long as our language lasts, See also:associate the names of his two illustrious friends with his own. It has already been mentioned that he sometimes felt keenly the See also:sarcasm which his See also:wild blundering talk brought upon him. He was, not long before his last illness, provoked into retaliating. He wisely betook himself to his See also:pen; and at that weapon he proved himself a match for all his assailants together. Within a small See also:compass he See also:drew with a singularly easy and vigorous See also:pencil the characters of nine or ten of his intimate associates. Though this little work did not receive his last touches, it must always be regarded as a masterpiece. It is impossible, however, not to wish that four or five likenesses which have no See also:interest for posterity were wanting to that noble See also:gallery, and that their places were supplied by sketches of Johnson and See also:Gibbon, as happy and vivid as the sketches of Burke and Garrick.
Some of Goldsmith's friends and admirers honoured him with a See also:cenotaph in See also:Westminster See also:Abbey. Nollekens was the sculptor, and Johnson wrote the inscription. It is much to be lamented that Johnson did not leave to posterity a more durable and a more valuable memorial of his friend. A life of Goldsmith would have been an inestimable addition to the Lives of the Poets. No man appreciated Goldsmith's writings more justly than Johnson; no man was better acquainted with Goldsmith's character and habits; and no man was more competent to delineate with truth and spirit the peculiarities of a mind in which great See also:powers were found in See also:company with great weaknesses. But the See also:list of poets to whose works Johnson was requested by the booksellers to furnish prefaces ended with See also:Lyttelton, who died in 1773. The See also:line seems to have been drawn expressly for the purpose of excluding the See also:person whose portrait would have most fitly closed the series. Goldsmith, however, has been fortunate in his biographers. (M.)
Goldsmith's life has been written by See also:Prior (1837), by See also:Washington See also:Irving (1844-1849), and by See also: 1854). The See also:diligence of Prior deserves great praise; the style of Washington Irving is always pleasing; but the highest See also:place must, in See also:justice, be assigned to the eminently interesting work of Forster. Subsequent See also:biographies are by See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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