therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revolution which brought England, France, and Spain, all under one crown; but, as I was also no conjurer, it amazed me beyond measure. Astonishment might have amounted to awe for one who appeared to me gifted with the power of performing miracles, if the good-nature of the man had not obviated my dread of the magician: but, from that time, whenever the Doctor came to visit my father, I I pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile; a game at romps constantly ensued, and we were always cordial friends and merry playfellows. Our unequal companionship varied somewhat, in point of sports, as grew older, but it did not last long,—my senior playmate died, alas! in his forty-fifth year, some months after I had attained my eleventh. His death, it has been thought, was hastened by mental inquietude!' If this supposition be true, never did the turmoils of life subdue a mind more warm with sympathy for the misfortunes of our fellow-creatures-but his character is familiar to every one who reads. In all the numerous accounts of his virtues and his foibles, his genius and absurdities, his knowledge of nature, and his ignorance of the world, his compassion for another's woe,' was always predominant and my trivial story of his humouring a froward child, weighs but as a feather in the recorded scale of his benevolence." * 6 Of Goldsmith's moral character, it is difficult to speak either in terms of praise or blame. That his conduct, especially in the earlier part of his career, was highly irregular, is undeniable. It is probable, also, that at this period his religious principles were not more settled than his notions upon most other subjects; and it is *Random Records, vol. i. certain, that he sometimes talked of sacred things with unbecoming levity. There is reason to believe, however, that as he advanced in life, his opinions became more correct. Dr Johnson observed of him, in 1763, “ Doctor Goldsmith is one of the first men we now have as an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been loose in his principles, but he is coming right."* In his writings, he shews himself uniformly the friend of virtue, and the advocate of religion; and even those who are least disposed to look upon this as a sufficient test of a man's real sentiments, will find it difficult to believe, that the author of the Vicar of Wakefield, however much he may have erred in his own conduct, could have been otherwise than deeply imbued with belief in the truth, and reverence for the character, of religion. Possessing a warm heart and generous affections, he was at all times liberal to the distressed; of an unsuspicious temper, he often became the dupe of the designing and the worthless. He would rise from his bed at midnight, to relieve the wants of a street beggar; and perhaps finish the remainder of the night at a gaming-table, where he hazarded without scruple the money which properly belonged to some industrious tradesman, his creditor: yet no one has more happily ridiculed or more severely condemned the character of the man who is generous before he is just.† His veracity has been called in question, and perhaps not without reason: nothing is more apt to lead to occasional departure from truth than inordinate vanity. His fictions, however, were harmlessso far as falsehood can ever be harmless since they were generally intended not to injure others, but to convey Boswell's Life of Jhnson. + See his admirable Essay on Justice and Generosity, and the character of Lysippus, in the third number of the Bee. E an exaggerated notion of his own importance: they were also harmless in another point of view, since they were often so little plausible as to be easily detected. * But while we must deny him the praise of virtue, we ought not to forget that his faults have been brought to the surface by his own simplicity, and that we need therefore make the less allowance for secret sins. As the generality of men are more wicked than they appear, so, on the other hand, it may be suspected of Goldsmith, that he appears more faulty than he really was; at least it may be surmised that his vices were not so much worse, or more numerous, than those of many who left a better character, as that he had less art to conceal them. His simplicity in this respect does, however, form no proper justification of his conduct; and it cannot be sufficiently lamented, that he who shewed himself so capable of appreciating the beauty of a virtuous life, should have indulged in irregularities which every good man must condemn. Yet such was the warmth of his affections, and the general benevolence of his disposition, that, in spite of his follies and his faults, he has more of our kindness than any of his contemporaries whose conduct may have been less exceptionable. Goldsmith was fond of representing himself as a cool calculating man of the world, who had seen too much of mankind to be easily imposed upon. In a letter to his brother Henry, written about the year 1759, he says, "I have passed my days among a parcel of cool designing beings, and have contracted all their suspicious manners in my own behaviour." Nothing can be more absurd than his pretension to a character so very opposite to his real temper. He was the most unguarded and least *He once told a clergyman, who himself mentioned it to Boswell, that he had a brother Dean of Durham. suspicious of men. He was the dupe of every impostor who could trump up a fictitious tale of wo, the victim of every needy adventurer, and every idle projector who chose to solicit his patronage; and he kept open house for a whole host of his poorer countrymen, even at a time when his own means of subsistence were both scanty and precarious. Perhaps it is unfair to charge this last circumstance on his liability to imposition; his benevolence was real, and he was often incapable of resisting importunity, even when he doubted the justice of the claim: but it is certain, that his unsuspicious temper made him frequently the dupe of imposture, in cases where there was not the most distant claim upon his sympathy. We are aware that in these strictures on Goldsmith's moral character, there is an apparently inconsistent mixture of praise and blame. But his character really consisted so much of contradictions, that it is difficult to speak of it as a whole; his faults and his virtues were so blended together, and formed so heterogeneous a mass, that he cannot perhaps be more justly described than in the words of Garrick, who represents him as A scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet. In these remarks we have been considering Goldsmith's morals exclusively in reference to his conduct: were we to judge of them by the principles which he recommends in all his works, we should find less to censure. The purity of sentiment, and delicacy of expression, which pervade his writings, render them as unobjectionable in point of morals, as they are admirable in point of taste. The man had his failings; but the author is always the friend of innocence and the advocate of virtue. As a prose writer, Goldsmith is generally acknowledged to stand in the foremost rank of merit. He has the happy art of always engaging the attention, and communicating interest to whatever subject employs his pen : he never tires his reader by unnecessary minuteness, and seldom disappoints curiosity by superficial brevity. In the words of one of his most highly gifted contemporaries, he was a man who, whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do. His style, though not always critically correct, is ever easy, elegant, and expressive. "There is something," says Cumberland,* "in Goldsmith's prose, that, to my ear, is uncommonly sweet and harmonious; it is clear, simple, easy to be understood; we never want to read his period twice over, except for the pleasure it bestows; obscurity never alls us back to a repetition of it." This style, too, it must be remarked, is peculiarly his own. Boswell, it is true, calls him the brightest ornament of the Johnsonian school but, as Mr Croker justly observes," Boswell imagined that all the literary men in England were mere planets, moving round, and borrowing light from his great luminary, Johnson. Goldsmith was an ornament of the Johnsonian society, but in what respect can he be said to have belonged to the Johnsonian school ?” † Johnson himself disclaimed him as an imitator of his style; and, indeed, nothing can be more unlike the laboured pomp and massy state of Johnson's periods, than the easy grace and attic elegance of Goldsmith. As a writer of essays, he has had no equal since the days of Addison. Froin the judgment displayed in the few pieces of criticism which he has left, there is reason to * Cumberland's Memoirs. + Croker s edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. |