thought, valuable in itself, is evolved in a neat and beautiful manner, it is enshrined in certain appropriate and hallowed expressions, for which no others could be substituted. These writings are transparent in style, the idea is made obvious to the apprehension, a striking truth and grace distinguish the sentiment, and their spirit is that of an ethereal calmness and repose. An uncommon accuracy, purity, and refinement, pervade their whole structure. Their predominating quality, if it may be expressed in one word, is the highest taste, and taste in writing, as Goldsmith himself observes, "is the exhibition of the greatest quantity of beauty and of use, that may be admitted into any description without counteracting each other." We feel, in reading such productions, that we have come in contact with a mind which readily reflects whatever is lovely, and bright, and true, in nature or in art. A genuine classical writer, therefore, is one to whom the highest consideration is to be attached, on account of the influence he is destined to wield, especially over cultivated intellect; and we may be justly solicitions, in respect to the nature of that influence, according as it is for good or evil.

The first characteristic of the writings of Goldsmith which we shall notice is, that they are indicative rather of genius, than erudition. Not that he was strikingly deficient in the latter, though Johnson, whose solicitude for the poet's reputation appears to have been sincere, is pleased to say, that his genius was great, but his knowledge small. It was small, perhaps, considering the native capacity of his mind, and the acquisitions he might have made with the diligence which he ought to have employed. It was not otherwise inconsiderable. We know, indeed, that in early life he was a trifler, and neglected his studies, yet he seems, notwithstanding, to have improved his time subsequently; and although he never became deeply scientific, his works show, that he must have amassed a fund of information of no inconsiderable an amount, and of a rich variety. With Milton, he may have felt, that

'Knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her temperance over appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain ;
Oppresses else with surfeit and soon turns
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.'

But, however it may be determined in regard to the extent of his learning, it is most certain that he had the art, in an unusual degree, to apply and employ whatever of it he possessed. It was perfectly at his command; and he knew when and VOL. X.

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where it would subserve a desirable purpose. This was his native talent, the unerring judgment and the refined taste with which he was gifted. It is indisputable, that his genius was of the highest order, creative, sprightly, and racy. His capacity of observation was exceeded by that of few men. Hence his writings have so much the character of a series of pictures, exhibiting life and manners, the varied forms of human society, and the passions of the heart. "The Vicar of Wakefield" and "The Citizen of the World" present throughout, the finest specimens of this result of genius. Goldsmith manifests little turn for the merely ideal and speculative, and his imagination, though fine and fruitful, is so chastened by his judgment, as by no means to constitute a striking feature of his writings. Fascinating narratives and simple truths, set off with only moderate ornaments, show the accuracy of his observation, and his understanding of that which pleases all mankind. As he noticed much the external forms of things, so he was well read in the human heart, especially in its more gentle and home-bred feelings. Hence his mastery over the soul, and the fine pathos with which his writings abound,-delighting both youth and age, both the scholar and the peasant. These are eminently the products and the proofs of genius. Without them, the learning of Warburton and the strength of Johnson, would scarcely be sufficient to sustain the claim to true intellectual greatness. Goldsmith's elegance, as in other writers of this class, is no slight indication of genius. It is a quality acquired by art with so little success, that where nature has not conferred it, we may hardly expect to find its development, in any degree of perfection. It is a felicity which we may not improperly say, is the gift of God, and lies in the constitution of the mind more than in its training. In Goldsmith it was unaccompanied by effort. It was perfectly natural to him, and he seems incapable of writing a careless, loose, or ungraceful sentence. Yet there was in him no affected nicety, or fastidious choice of words, or studied rounding of periods for musical effect. His biographer introduces Bishop Percy as remarking, that "his elegant and enchanting style in prose flowed from him with so much facility, that in whole quires of his histories, "Animated Nature," &c., he had seldom occasion to correct or alter a single word."

A second characteristic of the writings of Goldsmith, which we would bring into view is, the striking evidence which they afford of the power of circumstances over the efforts of the mind. They are singularly shaped by so arbitrary and capricious an

influence. His situation in life, chiefly dictated the measure and the mode of his intellectual exertions. He was seldom left to his own choice, and not always to the bent of his genius, in the productions which he put forth. The influence of circumstances in eliciting talents, or in directing their course has been observed, indeed, in the case of many others; but in our author it constitutes almost the sum total of his literary history. The miscellaneous manner of his living, his changes of fortune, his wanderings, and his wants, all combined to give a direction to the efforts of his genius. Necessity made him an author, and he seldom wrote from the humor of it. It sufficed, if his appetite for food, or love of dress, or general extravagance of expenditure created the imperious demand. He felt that these wants, natural or factitious, must be met; but his readiness in the use of his pen, lightened a task which could not otherwise have been long endured. The great number and variety of his literary engagements and their results, bespoke the character of one who wrote because he must, and who wrote appropriately, because he was able. Nature, in the tenderness and susceptibility of his feelings, intended him for a poet; and in a gentle humor and terse phraseology, he was fitted for an essayist of the Addisonian stamp; but he must needs be besides, a biographer, historian, novelist, naturalist, and a writer of school books. We hardly need regret, that he applied his mind to so many species of writing, since "nullum quod tetigit non ornavit." Nature had imbued him with the requisites of excelling in them all. He doubtless did right, at least acted with prudence, though that was not a remarkable virtue in Goldsmith, in neglecting at length an art by which, as he intimated, he could not live, and by declining to "die a martyr even to poetry." He absolved his conscience of guilt, if he did not oblige mankind, in bidding farewell to her, "loveliest maid," whom he addressed in a couplet which, as is believed, depicts the state of many a bard:

'Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,

That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.'

He

His early education, and the intercourse which he maintained with general society, and especially the regard which he was disposed to manifest towards the lower classes, gave him the power of awakening the common sympathies of men. dwelt on tender scenes,-painted the village in its by-gone days of happiness, and the village pastor, in the native simplicity and goodness of his heart. With these scenes his mind was in unison.

"Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train.
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.'

He sought for effect, particularly in his poetic pieces, and in his fiction, from painting the characters of rustic life in their real lineaments, viewed generally on the favorable side, with as much of innocence and enjoyment as is ever found in that rank of society. In doing this, he has given them a degree of elevation and embellishment, after the fashion of poetry, somewhat above the reality. In this respect he differs from Crabbe, who followed him in the same department of writing, inasmuch, as the latter has sternly delineated human nature, in its vices, miseries, and degradation; and sought to melt or appall the reader, as a philanthropist would affect his own heart or the hearts of others, by bringing before the eye the sad reality of human crimes or woes.

Another peculiarity of Goldsmith's writings to be here noticed, is the circumstance, that they reflect, in a remarkable degree, his own private history and that of his friends. Not merely his feelings, and the varying states of his mind are portrayed; but his memory furnished him with the situations, incidents, or adventures, in which he or they were concerned. These he wrought up as materials for his sketches or narratives, so that as his biographer remarks, "when his invention failed, he had only to draw upon his memory." This sort of autobiography is found in his plays, poetry, "Vicar of Wakefield," "Citizen of the World," and detached essays, and doubtless has added much to their interest. Sketches taken from actual life, and faithfully taken, always please. It can make but little difference, whether it be the history of the author and his family, or that of others, as to the effect, if there be an equal variety of interesting occurrences. Whatever peculiarities may attach to an individual, yet there are so many points in which one heart is like another, and one person's feelings and experience resemble another's, that he who describes one individual or a single group, depicts essentially all mankind. He who delineates himself, holds up a mirror, in which all may see something of their own hearts. Of necessity, he presents to view those properties which are common to the race. As Goldsmith wrote largely, from his recollections of what he had witnessed in himself and in his family connections, we can readily account for the fresh

ness, truth, and power of his delineations. The writer, who has facts and living men and women in his eye, finds a guide to correctness which, if he possess skill in the use of his pen, will not fail to conduct him to the public favor. Our author, more than most writers, has discovered and availed himself of the true secret of fixing the attention of mankind, by drawing his sketches from nature and actual experience. With what interest we dwell on the story of his home and family,-the scenes of his early adventures, the village with its church, and school, and alehouse,-his wanderings over the earth,-his expedients for a livelihood, and the like, when we meet with them in the various works of which they constitute separate portions, whether in polished verse, amid the busy scenes of a novel, or under the embellishments of an oriental tale.

The last general characteristic of Goldsmith's writings, of which it is our design to speak, relates to their negative influence in respect to the cause of morality and religion. As christian spectators, it becomes us to offer somewhat on their moral character and tendencies, even should there appear to be but little in his favor. Such a task, to us, is not altogether pleasing. It is true we find, on the present topic, less to condemn and more to approve in Goldsmith, than in most of the wits and authors of his age, who were not professed friends and advocates of christianity. But why might we not be permitted to point only to purity and truth, in an author naturally so guileless and fascinating? Our satisfaction in some points is mingled with regret on others, in which he omitted to urge the claims of morality and religion, if he did not advance sentiments or evince a spirit in opposition to both. English classical literature, in the most unexceptionable authors, is too often chargeable with the sin of omission in regard to a healthful moral influence; while in the great mass of authors it is justly offensive on the score of decency and correct sentiments. The poets, in particular, have lent the most effectual aid, not only in divesting the reader's mind of all serious views, but in inculcating loose principles and inspiring guilty passions. Goldsmith's pure taste, his refined and ingenuous feelings, and his benevolent tendencies, might be supposed to preserve him from any wanton purposed infusion of a wicked and corrupting leaven into his productions. And they did preserve him, in a great degree, from this perversion of genius. Even the occasional obliquities of temper and practice into which he was betrayed, and which were but too palpable, seem not to have interfered much with the expression of his better feelings. We have wondered, that frivolity and dis