THE POET AND THE ESSAYIST
Successful in every sphere, it is as an essayist that, amongst the
immortals, Goldsmith sways signal and supreme distinction. As a poet,
not less than as a playwright, he triumphed in his own, and inspired
and influenced the coming age. As a biographer, he readily gained
contemporary celebrity, both through the sympathetic understanding of
his heart and the delightful facility of his literary style. In his
own time, he occupied, through the high and undoubted merits of his
works, an eminent position amongst the historians. The appealing force
of his power in this field has lasted practically until the present
day. That his histories have been superseded is due far more to
changes in attitude and criticism and the revolutionary results of
modern research than to intrinsic failures in the works themselves.
They still stand monuments in pure English and models in patriotic
perception, the due balance between the general and the particular,
and also in vividness, compression, and an unfailing clearness, both
in sound views, and also in their unfailing explicit expression.
Whilst it has appeared the unhappy destiny of this author to have been
at times too lightly regarded, high praise has almost always been
accorded to his labours.
Sir Walter Scott writes: "The wreath of Goldsmith is unsullied; he
wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice; and he accomplished his task in
a manner that raises him to the highest rank among British authors. We
close his volumes with a sigh that such an author should have written
so little from the stores of his own genius, and that he should have
been so prematurely removed from the sphere of literature which he
adorned." Johnson writes: "The Life of Dr. Parnell is a task which I
should very willingly decline, since it has been lately written by
Goldsmith--a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of
performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing.
What such an author has told, who would wish to tell again?" The same
generous soul exclaimed: "Is there a man, sir, now, who can pen an
essay with such ease and elegance as Goldsmith?" All can see how true
this is when they compare Goldsmith's style with that of his
contemporaries--that hostile essay, for example, published from
Richardson's firm, in which, time after time, sneers must cease and
praise prevail, despite the intention to decry. If reluctant laudation
is most sincere, then Boswell himself said of Goldsmith that there was
nothing that he touched that he did not adorn. Goldsmith adorned, but
not with mere polish or veneer. He threw a curious felicity on things,
and made them fair. The very beauty of his touch allures us to take
his work too lightly. If his essays had been in his own time
translated into pompous terms, he could have passed for a sage. As
convention makes religion something of which little children grow
afraid, so older minds think beauty must be frivolous, and that moral
worth must live in rapt association with outward ugliness. A most
graceful literary style may be as true and earnest and inspiring as a
very pretty woman. It teaches as it smiles. On everything Goldsmith
ever cast a fairer and more hallowed light. The very inmost essence of
his genius was purity in its compassionate perfection. It must,
indeed, have been difficult under the conditions of distress amidst
which almost throughout his whole life he wrote, for him to preserve
an ease of style, and with the ease a dignity. Yet through all, not
even once he faltered. He never failed. Following Fielding's happy
epigram--if it ought not to be rather called most unhappy--in these
days the lot of a literary man who was a hackney writer was hardly
better, nay, scarce as good, as the lot of a hackney coachman. Yet
even in those writings which must have been rushed off most rapidly,
and amidst the fires of scorching distress, Goldsmith maintained his
grace of style, and did not forget the reverence due to writing and
the honour of literature. Without any trace or taint of
self-consciousness or self-conceit, he held the pen a sacred trust. As
a critic Goldsmith had a high ideal, and more than this. And, what is
finer, an entirely new conception. No poet could read his criticism of
Gray and not feel inspired. No one could peruse the article and not
feel that henceforth poetry was something more to him and to all life
than it had ever been before. Criticism is itself among the evolving
sciences. Depreciation was rife. Goldsmith touched a new chord in
inspiring and chastening appreciation, a spirit which even now, more
and more, in life and letters, men must realize. Unlike Brougham,
Goldsmith could chide without unkindness, and prove severe without
proving cruel. He threw such a light of love on merit that could and
did soften and condone the deserved censure of the strictures that not
envy, but mercy, made him utter. Criticism in its true sense was
hardly known. In enlarging the message of poetry, the motive of the
drama and the functions of fiction, Goldsmith fulfilled the
responsibilities of higher criticism, and that power of inspiration
and heightening of expression and perceptivity which are its first
duty and its highest honour. Whilst in the elevation of criticism and
the higher interpretation of poetry much is due to the inspiring
guidance of Gray, a great deal, and more than is commonly admitted, is
due to Goldsmith. If he did not force, he influenced the splendid
expansion of spiritual perception. It is as a writer of essays that
on Goldsmith falls the light of pure pre-eminence. Some hold Charles
Lamb supreme amongst the essayists, and others Goldsmith, The last men
who would ever have fought for the vanity of recognised supremacy
would have been these two gentle rival claimants for the crown. There
is a peculiar felicity in much of the writing of Laurence Sterne. His
demerits preclude him from a sacred place. It is strange how rare
grace is in every sphere of art. In that of gracious writing, Oliver
Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, and Nathaniel Hawthorne are alone in pure and
isolated splendour. We speak of grace, and not here of power of mind
or informative force. How greatly Froude and Emerson would be enhanced
gifted with graciousness. Goldsmith, even in his own day, was
acknowledged the best of the essay writers. This is the realm in which
he was, and is to this day, king. From his love of poetry and
happiness in his art, and that shining in the power of deft and
delightful expression, there is another sphere in which it would be
expected that his power would prevail, but in which he had either no
actual talent or very little. However we may admire _The Haunch of
Venison_ and other stray pieces, Goldsmith was really not a writer of
what is now called "Society verse." In that delightful sphere Austin
Dobson has no rival. In the higher realms of poetry there are many who
will regret that necessity forced Goldsmith to turn almost exclusively
to prose. Poetry loves genius, and starves it; whilst prose, hating,
feeds and clothes its child. Clearly genius, so much at ease in the
essay, would prosper in the poem. No one can imagine when men will
live and not love Gray's "Elegy"; and if this be so, then for as long,
at least, there will be a place within the heart for Goldsmith's
_Deserted Village_. Of _The Traveller_, Dr. Johnson said: "There has
not been so fine a poem since Pope's time." This may seem poor praise.
It was not so at that time; Pope reigned supreme, and was esteemed by
Johnson at home, and Voltaire abroad, as pre-eminent. Worshipping
admirers held Pope and Dryden very gods. Dryden and Pope have passed
away more easily than Gray and Goldsmith will. In Dryden, Pope, and
Johnson himself we have mere imitators of Latinity. They have no style
or fashion that can be wholly held their own, and without Virgil,
Juvenal, Horace, and Ovid they could not have spoken. Goldsmith
strikes a purer strain, and one peculiarly his own and ours. He is as
English as Wordsworth. This makes the comparison with Pope and Dryden
now most imperfect. Admitting so much, it almost follows of necessity
that Goldsmith was the first poet of the rich and enriching school
that still sways the common heart, that gave us Tennyson, Keats,
Shelley, and an unrivalled host in the history of poetic inspiration
and expression. It must, of course, be recognised that Goldsmith was
not the first to herald the purely homely and an entirely indigenous
note, since Gray was with him, and far earlier, Philip Sydney had
poured forth his fair and felicitous melodies. Beyond, above, and
greater far than these, Milton, attuning his hallowed and harmonious
strains, through the classic chords of Rome, had so faithfully
fulfilled their inspiration with moving majesty, that rising and
transcendently surpassing all his models, he was, and is, in very deed
unique, original, unsupported, and supreme. _The Deserted Village_ was
given to the world, but one cannot say how long it lay hidden in the
yearning heart of that genius who gave it light and life. It
substantiated the fame of Goldsmith for ever and unalterably. In the
last year of his life, Gray welcomed the piece, and was most moved and
grateful as he greeted it. It is as much a part of our life as his own
"Elegy," and though each poem is distinct and could only have been
bestowed by the one heart of the poet, who blessed himself and blessed
the lives of men in writing it, still there is a sweet similitude.
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
GOLDSMITH.
(From an engraving of the statue at Trinity College, Dublin.)]
The highest praise that one could give Gray and Goldsmith is to hold
their genius and their influence kindred. There is, however, a
glistening and Chaucerian brightness and vitality in Goldsmith not
discernible in Gray. Their kindredness is thus that of the vernal unto
the autumnal light. In _The Deserted Village_, from its whole
reflective vein, at a glance we must perceive that long these loved
and loving thoughts had lingered in the mind and the heart of the
poet. Sparks from Heaven fell upon the tinder of the yearnings of the
lowly heart. At last the glow was seen, and grew a light distinct.
There is a moulding, moving music of the mind. Swiftly, in time, line
after line found its place within the common heart and life. Again, as
in earlier days, we see the spiritual spell, and with the force, the
form and understanding, fathoming stretch and reach and power and
grasp of genius.
The sublimity of the spirit of Shakespeare and the aloofness of the
mind of Milton divide their influence, through an infinite
universality, from the current of evolving expression. Goldsmith was
one in the great succession of the dynasty of poetry that must outlast
the nation and the race. In the line of this successive sovereignty
the name of Chaucer is first inscribed, and that of the towering
Browning is now seen the last upon the glorious list of the kings of
poetry. If Gray's "Elegy" came close to the outward beauty and the
inmost heart of nature, the same must be said of Goldsmith's _Deserted
Village_. From the heart and life of nature, poetry has now passed to
the heart and life of man. That first natural interpretation that
gained its meridian glory through Wordsworth, and its bright, vivid,
yet evening radiance in the sweet spirit of the dulcet Tennyson, knew
its dawn through the love-lit lines of Gray and Goldsmith.
_The Deserted Village_ appeared soon after the production of _The
Good-natured Man_ in the moving and marvellous procession of Oliver
Goldsmith's great and successive achievements. The poem was dedicated
to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was as rejoiced and grateful as only a
true friend could be. The artist could admire the piece profoundly,
but still not more sincerely than Edmund Burke, the statesman and the
orator. As Tennyson had a lilt and Byron a sentiment, swiftly and
easily appealing, consciously or unconsciously caught, and sincerely
felt or insincerely imitated, so Goldsmith possessed a teaching charm
and a guiding grace that can be traced in many later poets and amongst
the works of greatest minds, in the poetry of Robert Burns. Poets,
like priests, teach the hearts and lives of men, the means and power
of their expression. One may cull from Goldsmith his own sublime
simile:
"And, as a bird, each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."