r 73 ] 



" language was copious ivithout exuberance^ exaB without conjlraini^ 

 " and eafy without weaknefs,''^ 



Goldsmith feems to have poflelTed every qu ility which might 

 give popularity to a poet. His language is fimple, his verfifi- 

 cation flowing and familiar, his fentiments natural and pathe- 

 tic. His illuflrations are not pompous exhibitions of learning, 

 allufions to arts which are little tinderftood, and hiftories 

 which have been little read ; his pidlures of nature are not ela- 

 borate and minute delineations of individual fcenery ; his views 

 of life are not metaphyfical inveftigations crippled into rhyme, 

 not conjedlnral fancies of the manners of remote times or 

 imaginary conditions, not difgufling expofures of human infir- 

 mity or outrageous caricatures of extravagant fingularities. 

 Always eafy and unafFedled, Goldfmith paints nature as it 

 firuck him and manners as he adually obferved them. His 

 faults too (for fome faults his greateft admirers muft admit 

 in him — faults allied to his excellencies) are certainly not of 

 an unpopular clafs. If his language is frequently colloquial, 

 and occafionally even ungrammatical, it is never obfcure : if 

 he laments a depopulation in a country where it did not exift 

 he knew that a people who loved to^ hear of grievances were 

 to be his readers. 



Johnson pronounced of the Traveller that it was a pro- 

 dudlion to which fince the death of Pope it would not be eafy 



( K 2 ) to 



