gt J. Herbert Russell SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH, M. B. MH S THIS gentleman was born at Fernes, in the province of Leinster, in Ireland, in the year 1731. His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, had four sons, of whom Oliver was the youngest. He studied the classics in Mr. Hughes's school; and on the 11th of June, 1744, was admitted a sizar in Trinity College, Dublin. During his continuance at the University, he made no display of those shining abilities which afterwards so distinguishedly marked his genius. In the month of February, 1749, which was two years after the regular course of those things, he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the year 1751, he visited Edinburgh, having previously turned his thoughts to the profession of physic, and attended some courses of anatomy in Dublin. At Edinburgh, he studied the different branches of medicine under the respective professors in that University. His thoughtless, though beneficent disposition, soon involved him in difficulties; and, having made himself responsible for the debt of another person, a fellow-student, he was obliged abruptly to leave Scotland, in order to avoid the horrors of a prison. In the beginning of the year 1754 he arrived at Sunderland; but being pursued by a legal process, on account of the debt we have just mentioned, he was arrested; but he was afterwards set at liberty by the friendship of Mr. Laughlin Maclane and Dr. Sleigh, who were then in the college. Having surmounted this embarrassment, he embarked on board a Dutch ship, and arrived at Rotterdam; from whence he went to Brussels; then visited great part of Flanders, and afterwards Strasburg and Louvain, where he continued some time, and obtained the degree of Bachelor in Physic. From thence he went to Geneva, in company with an English gentleman. It is a circumstance worth recording, that he had so strong a propensity to see different countries, men, and manners, that even the necessity of walking on foot could not deter him from this favourite pursuit. His German flute, on which he played tolerably well, frequently supplied him with the means of subsistence; and his learning procured him a favourable reception at most of the religious houses he visited. He himself tells us, that whenever he approached a peasant's house, he played one of his most merry tunes, and that generally procured him not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day. This, however, was not the case with the rich, who generally despised both him and his music. He had not been long arrived at Geneva, when he met with a young man, who, by the death of an uncle, was become possessed of a considerable fortune, and to whom Mr. Goldsmith was recommended for a travelling companion. As avarice was the prevailing principle of this young man, it cannot be supposed he was long pleased with his preceptor, who was of a contrary turn of mind. Mr. Goldsmith, during his residence at the college of Edinburgh, had given marks of his rising genius for poetry, which Switzerland greatly contributed to bring to maturity. It was here he wrote the first sketch of his Traveller, which he sent to his brother Henry, a clergyman in Ireland, who, despising Fame and Fortune, retired with an amiable wife, on an income of only forty pounds per annum, to pass a life of happiness and obscurity. Our poet and his pupil continued together until they arrived at the south of France, where, on a disagreement, they parted, and our author was left to struggle with all the difficulties that a man could experience, who was in a state of poverty, in a foreign country, without friends. Yet, notwithstanding all his difficulties, his ardour for travelling was not abated; and he persisted in his scheme, though he was frequently obliged to be beholden to his flute and the peasants. At length, his curiosity being gratified," he bent his course towards England, and about the beginning of the winter, in 1758, he arrived at Dover. His situation was not much mended on his arrival in London, at which period the whole of his finances were reduced to a few halfpence. What must be the gloomy apprehensions of a man in so forlorn a situation, and an utter stranger in the metropolis! He applied to several apothecaries for employment; but his awkward appearance, and his broad Irish accent, were so much against him, that he met only with ridicule and contempt. At last, however, merely through motives of humanity, he was taken notice of by a chemist, who employed him in his laboratory. In this situation he continued, till he was informed that his old friend Dr. Sleigh was in London. He then quitted the chemist, and lived some time upon the liberality of the doctor; but, disliking a life of dependence on the generosity of his friend, and being unwilling to be burthensome to him, he soon accepted an offer that was made him, of assisting the late Rev. Dr. Milner, in the education of young gentlemen, at his academy at Peckham. During the time he remained in this situation, he gave much satisfaction to his employer; but as he had obtained some reputation from criticisms he had written in the Monthly Review, he eagerly engaged in the compilation of that work, with Mr. Griffith, the principal proprietor. He accordingly returned to London, took a lodging in Green-Arbour Court, in the Old Bailey, and commenced a professed author. This was in the year 1759, before the close of which he produced several works, particularly a periodical publication, called The Bee, and An Enquiry into the present State of Polite Learning in Europe. He also became a writer in The Public Ledger, in which his Citizen of the World originally appeared, under the title of Chinese Letters. His reputation extended so rapidly, and his connections became so numerous, that he was soon enabled to emerge from his mean lodgings in the Old Bailey, to the politer air of the Temple, where he took chambers in 1762, and lived in a more creditable manner. At + length, his reputation was fully established by the publication of The Traveller in the year 1765. His Vicar of Wakefield followed his Traveller, and his History of England was followed by the performance of his Comedy of The Good-natured Man, all which contributed to place him among the first rank of the poets of these times. The Good-natured Man was acted at CoventGarden Theatre in the year 1768. Many parts of this play exhibit the strongest indications of our author's comic talents. There is, perhaps, no character on the stage more happily imagined, and more highly finished, than Croaker's; nor do we recollect so original and successful an incident as that of the letter, which he conceives to be the composition of the incendiary, and feels a thousand ridiculous horrors in consequence of his absurd apprehension. The audience, however, having been just before exalted on the sentimental stilts of False Delicacy, a Comedy by Mr. Kelly, they regarded a few scenes in Mr. Goldsmith's piece as too low for their entertainment, and therefore treated them with unjustifiable severity. Nevertheless, The Good-natured Man succeeded, though in a degree inferior to its merit. The prologue to it, which is excellent, was written by Dr. Samuel Johnson. In 1773, the Comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, or The Mistakes of a Night, was acted at CoventGarden Theatre. This Piece was considered as a farce by some writers: even if so, it must be ranked among the farces of a man of genius. One of the most ludicrous circumstances it contains, which is that of the robbery, is said to be borrowed from Albamazzar. Mr. Colman, who was then a manager of the theatre, had very little opinion of this piece, and made so keen a remark on it, while in rehearsal, that the Doctor never forgave him for it. The piece, however, succeeded contrary to Mr. Colman's expectations, being received with uncommon applause by the audience. The last theatrical piece the Doctor produced, was The Grumbler, a Farce, altered from Sedley. It was acted at Covent-Garden, in 1773, for the benefit of Mr. Quick; but it was acted only one night, and was never printed. The Doctor might, with a little attention to prudence and have placed himself in a state above economy, want and dependence. He is said to have acquired, in one year, one thousand eight hundred pounds; and the advantages arising from his writings were very considerable for many years before his death. But these were rendered useless by an improvident liberality, which prevented his distinguishing properly the objects of his generosity; and an unhappy attachment to gaming, with the arts of which he was very little acquainted. He therefore remained at times as much embarrassed in his circumstances, as when his income was in its lowest and most precarious state. He had been for some years, at different times, affected with a violent stranguary, which contributed to embitter the latter part of his life, and which, united with the vexations he suffered upon other occasions, brought on a kind of habitual despondency. In this condition he was attacked by a nervous fever, which, in spite of the most able medical assistance, terminated in his dissolution, on the 4th day of April, 1774, in the forty-fifth year of his age. His remains were deposited in the burial-ground belonging to the Temple, and a monument hath since been erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, at the expense of a literary club to which he belonged. It consists of a large medallion, exhibiting a good likeness of the Doctor, embellished with literary ornaments; underneath which is a tablet of white marble, with the following inscription, written by his friend Dr. Samuel Johnson. Englished. This Monument is raised to the Memory of OLIVER GOLDSMITH, Poet, Natural Philosopher, and Historian; Who left no species of writing untouched, or Unadorn'd by His Pen. He was a powerful master Though at the same time a gentle tyrant; Where Pallas had set her name, He was educated at Dublin; DEDICATION TO THE TRAVELLER. TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH. I AM sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a Dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands that it is addressed to a man, who, despising Fame and Fortune, has retired early to Happiness and Obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year. I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you have left the field of Ambition, where the labourers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest. Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, Painting and Music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival Poetry, and at length supplant her; they engross all that favour once shown to her, and, though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birth-right. Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse, and Pindaric odes, chorusses, anapests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative. But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous, I mean Party. Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man, after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his tawdry lampoons are called satires: his turbulence is said to be force, and his phrenzy fire. What reception a Poem may find, which has nei ther abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavoured to show, that there may be equal happiness in states that are differently governed from our own; that every state has a particular principle of happiness, and that this principle in each may be carried to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge better than yourself, how far these positions are illustrated in this Poem. REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crown'd, Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale; Or press the bashful stranger to his food, And learn the luxury of doing good. But me, not destin'd such delights to share, My prime of life in wandering spent and care; Impell'd with steps unceasing to pursue Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view; That, like the circle bounding earth and skies, Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies; My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, And find no spot of all the world my own. E'en now, where Alpine solitudes ascend, I sit me down a pensive hour to spend ; And plac'd on high, above the storm's career, Look downward where a hundred realms appear; Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide, The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride. When thus Creation's charms around combine, Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine? Say, should the philosophic mind disdain That good which makes each humbler bosom vain? | Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can, These little things are great to little man; And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind Exults in all the good of all mankind. Ye glitt'ring towns, with wealth and splendour crown'd; Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round; Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall, But where to find that happiest spot below, But let us try these truths with closer eyes, And trace them through the prospect as it lies: Here, for a while, my proper cares resign'd, Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind; B 2 Like. yon neglected shrub at random cast, Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast, Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supply'd Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd, As in those domes, where Cæsars once bore sway, My soul turn from them, turn we to survey Tho' poor the peasant's hut, his feasts tho' small, Thus every good his native wilds impart Such are the charms to barren states assign'd; flies, That first excites desire, and then supplies. To fill the languid pause with finer joy: But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow; Thro' life's more cultur'd walks, and charm the way, These, far dispers'd, on timorous pinions fly, To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, I turn; and France displays her bright domain. |