"OLIVARII GOLDSMITH, Poetæ, Physici, Historici, Qui nullum ferè scribendi genus Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit : Sive risus essent movendi, Sive lacrymæ, Affectuum potens at lenis dominator: Hoc monumento memoriam coluit Sodalium amor, Amicorum fides, Lectorum veneratio. Natus in Hibernia Forniæ Longfordiensis, In loco cui nomen Pallas, Nov. XXIX. MDCCXXXI.; Eblanæ literis institutus; Obiit Londini, April IV. MDCCLXXIV."* We shall not pretend to follow these anecdotes of the life of Goldsmith with any critical dissertation on his writings; their *The following translation is from Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson: OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, And touched nothing that he did not adorn; Whether smiles were to be moved or tears, A powerful yet gentle master; In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile, CONCLUDING REMARKS. 375 merits have long since been fully discussed, and their station in the scale of literary merit permanently established. They have outlasted generations of works of higher power and wider scope, and will continue to outlast succeeding generations, for they have that magic charm of style by which works are embalmed to perpetuity. Neither shall we attempt a regular analysis of the character of the poet, but will indulge in a few desultory remarks in addition to those scattered throughout the preceding chapters. Never was the trite, because sage apothegm, that “The child is father to the man," more fully verified than in the case of Goldsmith. He is shy, awkward, and blundering in childhood, yet full of sensibility; he is a butt for the jeers and jokes of his companions, but apt to surprise and confound them by sudden and witty repartees; he is dull and stupid at his tasks, yet an eager and intelligent devourer of the travelling tales and campaigning stories of his half military pedagogue; he may be a dunce, but he is already a rhymer; and his early scintillations of poetry awaken the expectations of his friends. He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one bright, the other blundering; or to have had fairy gifts laid in his cradle In style, elevated, clear, elegant- The fidelity of friends, And the veneration of readers, Have by this monument honored the memory. He was born in Ireland, At a place called Pallas, [In the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, Educated at [the University of] Dublin, And died in London, 4th April, 1774. by the "good people" who haunted his birth-place, the old goblin mansion on the banks of the Inny. He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or college: they unfit him for close study and practical science, and render him heedless of every thing that does not address itself to his poetical imagination and genial and festive feelings; they dispose him to break away from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the country like a gipsy in quest of odd adventures. As if confiding in these delusive gifts, he takes no heed of the present nor care for the future, lays no regular and solid foundation of knowledge, follows out no plan, adopts and discards those recommended by his friends, at one time prepares for the ministry, next turns to the law, and then fixes upon medicine. He repairs to Edinburgh, the great emporium of medical science, but the fairy gifts accompany him; he idles and frolics away his time there, imbibing only such knowledge as is agreeable to him; makes an excursion to the poetical regions of the Highlands; and having walked the hospitals for the customary time, sets off to ramble over the Continent, in quest of novelty rather than knowledge. His whole tour is a poetical one. He fancies he is playing the philosopher while he is really playing the poet; and though professedly he attends lectures and visits foreign universities, so deficient is he on his return, in the studies for which he set out, that he fails in an examination as a surgeon's mate; and while figuring as a doctor of medicine, is outvied on a point of practice by his apothecary. Baffled in every regular pursuit, after trying in vain some of the humbler callings of commonplace CONCLUDING REMARKS. 377 life, he is driven almost by chance to the exercise of his pen, and here the fairy gifts come to his assistance. For a long time, however, he seems unaware of the magic properties of that pen: he uses it only as a make-shift until he can find a legitimate means of support. He is not a learned man, and can write but meagerly and at second-hand on learned subjects; but he has a quick convertible talent that seizes lightly on the points of knowledge necessary to the illustration of a theme: his writings for a time are desultory, the fruits of what he has seen and felt, or what he has recently and hastily read; but his gifted pen transmutes every thing into gold, and his own genial nature reflects its sunshine through his pages. Still unaware of his powers he throws off his writings anonymously, to go with the writings of less favored men; and it is a long time, and after a bitter struggle with poverty and humiliation, before he acquires confidence in his literary talent as a means of support, and begins to dream of reputation. From this time his pen is a wand of power in his hand, and he has only to use it discreetly, to make it competent to all his wants. But discretion is not a part of Goldsmith's nature; and it seems the property of these fairy gifts to be accompanied by moods and temperaments to render their effect precarious. The heedlessness of his early days; his disposition for social enjoyment; his habit of throwing the present on the neck of the future, still continue. His expenses forerun his means; he incurs debts on the faith of what his magic pen is to produce, and then, under the pressure of his debts, sacrifices its productions for prices far below their value. It is a redeeming cirumstance in his prodigality, that it is lavished oftener upon others than upon himself: he gives without thought or stint, and is the con tinual dupe of his benevolence and his trustfulness in human nature. We may say of him as he says of one of his heroes, "He could not stifle the natural impulse which he had to do good, but frequently borrowed money to relieve the distressed; and when he knew not conveniently where to borrow, he has been observed to shed tears as he passed through the wretched suppliants who attended his gate." * "His simplicity in trusting persons whom he had no previcus reasons to place confidence in, seems to be one of those lights of his character which, while they impeach his understanding, do honor to his benevolence. The low and the timid are ever suspicious; but a heart impressed with honorable sentiments, expects from others sympathetic sincerity."* His heedlessness in pecuniary matters, which had rendered his life a struggle with poverty even in the days of his obscurity, rendered the struggle still more intense when his fairy gifts had elevated him into the society of the wealthy and luxurious, and imposed on his simple and generous spirit fancied obligations to a more ample and bounteous display. "How comes it," says a recent and ingenious critic, "that in all the miry paths of life which he had trod, no speck ever sullied the robe of his modest and graceful muse. How amidst all that love of inferior company, which never to the last forsook him, did he keep his genius so free from every touch of vulgarity?" We answer that it was owing to the innate purity and goodness of his nature; there was nothing in it that assimilated to vice and vulgarity. Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the poor, they never could betray him into *Goldsmith's Life of Nash. |