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GOLDSMITH, OLIVER. 



GOLDSMITH, OLIVER 



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and absurdity. The melodrama, or opera, introduced by Rimicciui, 

 tended to favour, under the shelter of musical attraction, all sorts of 

 irregularities of plot and action, and it gradually drove the regular 

 comedy from the stage. But there was another species of play which 

 might be styled national, namely, the ' commedie dell' arte,' or ' h. 

 soggetto.' Theae plays were not written ; a mere outline of the plot 

 was sketched out, and the various characters being assigned to the 

 actors, each filled up his own part as he chose, the dialogue being for 

 the most part delivered extempore on the spur of the occasion, just 

 like a conversation in private society. It might be called an improviso 

 drama. The principal characters of these plays were fixed, and con- 

 sisted chiefly of what the Italians called ' Maschere," because the actors 

 who performed them wore masks; they were a sort of .caricature 

 representatives of the native humour and local peculiarities of the 

 people of the various Italian states. Thus, Pantalone was the proto- 

 type of a Venetian tradesman, honourable and good-natured even to 

 weakness, with much of the humour peculiar to his country; the 

 Dottore was a Bolognese professor somewhat pedantic ; Brighella, a 

 sort of Italian Scapini, was an intriguing rogue of a servant ; Harlequin, 

 from Bergamo, was a curious compound of simplicity and waggery ; 

 Policinella, a Neapolitan clown, a licentious, pilfering, but humorous 

 knave. Each of these spoke hia native dialect, while the other dramatis 

 persona; spoke the written Italian. These generally consisted of an 

 amoroso, or lover, and his mistress, often a couple of each, besides 

 subordinate female characters of pert, shrewd, intriguing servant-maids, 

 with the generic names of Colombina, Smeraldina, Spilletta, &c. The 

 attraction of these plays consisted in their wit and drollery, the quick 

 repartee, the licentious double meaning, and also in the acting of the 

 performers. A few clever actors here and there gave a peculiar zest 

 to the play, and many of these unwritten performances had really 

 considerable merit, but mediocrity was fatal to them, and in most 

 cases these comedies degenerated into mere scurrility and low vulgarity. 

 Goldoni determined to revive the use of regular comedy, and with 

 this view he wrote a vast number of plays descriptive of the life and 

 manners of his countrymen. He bad a great fund of invention, a 

 facility of writing, and was an attentive observer of men. He excels 

 in painting the Venetians of his time, jovial, licentious, good-natured, 

 and careless ; several of his plays are entirely in the Venetian dialect, 

 and are remarkable for raciness and fluency of diction. His Italian, 

 on the contrary, is far from pore, and the expressions are at times 

 mean. Goldoni, although himself an honourable man, had mixed 

 during a great part of his life with very equivocal company, and the 

 manners which he paints, though real, are not always the best ; indeed 

 some of his scenes would not be tolerated on the English or even 

 French stage. Being deficient in general information, whenever he 

 has attempted to sketch foreign manners he has committed blunders. 

 He often wrote in great hurry for bread, as he himself Bays, being 

 bound to supply his company with a certain number of new plays 

 annually, and at one time he wrote as many as sixteen in one year, a 

 circumstance which may account for the great inequality observable 

 in his compositions. But with all his faults, Goldoni waa certainly 

 the restorer, if not the creator, of Italian comedy ; his plays continue 

 to be acted with applause ; and the best writers of comedy that Italy 

 has produced since his death, such ss De Rossi, Giraud, Note, &c., are 

 confessedly disciples of Goldoni. In Goldoni's time the Commedie 

 dell' Arte found a powerful defender in Carlo Gozzi, a writer of 

 unquestionable though ill-regulated genius, who was Goldoni's great 

 antagonist, and divided with him the applause of the Venetian public. 

 He wrote some clever parodies of Goldoni's plays. This contest, which 

 made great noise at the time, and is by no means devoid of interest 

 for the history of the Italian imnd, is noticed at some length by Ugoni, 

 ' Letteratura Italians,' article ' Carlo Gozzi ;' and also by Baretti, in 

 hia ' Account of the Manners and Customs of Italy.' 



Goldoni, after many years of a very laborious life, was still poor, 

 when in 1761 he was invited to Paris by the Italian comedians of 

 that city. He there wrote a great number of plays, some of them in 

 French ; most of which met with great success. His ' Bom ru Bien- 

 faisant ' remained a standard play on the French stage. Voltaire speaks 

 of Goldoui with great praise, and paid him very flattering compliments 

 at the time. Diderot borrowed the subject of his ' Natural Son ' from 

 one of Goldoni's plays. Goldoni having become known at the French 

 court, was appointed teacher of Italian to the daughters of Louis XV., 

 and after some years a pension of 3600 livres was given to him. He 

 was living comfortably in his old age at Paris when the revolution 

 deprived him of his pension. The Convention however, on a motion 

 of Cbenier in January 1793, restored it to him, but he did not live to 

 enjoy the boon, as he died a few days after. His widow was paid the 

 arrears. 



Goldoni published an edition of his plays in 18 vols. 8vo, Venice, 

 1761 ; but a complete edition of his works was published after his 

 death in 44 vols. Svo, Venice, 17V4-95. Numerous choice selections 

 of his best plays have been and still are published in Italy. He also 

 wrote ' Memoirs of his Life,' in French, in 3 vols. 



GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, was born on the 10th of November 1728 

 at a place called Pallas, or Pallumore, in the parish of Forney, and 

 county of Longford, in Ireland. He was the fifth among seven children 

 of tUe Rev. Charles Goldsmith, who bad married early in life when 

 without meant adequate for the support of a family, and who obtained 



his first church preferment, the rectory of Kilkenny West, only in 

 1730, two years after the birth of Oliver. Tie future poet was 

 accounted a dull child ; and for this reason, as well as on account of 

 the straitened circumstances of the father, it was at first intended 

 to bring him up for a mercantile employment. He received the first 

 rudiments of his education at a village school. Afterwards, when by 

 a fondness for rhyming and other manifestations of wit he had so far 

 excited hope that an uncle and other relations offered to undertake the 

 expenses necessary for his being sent to the University of Dublin, he 

 was removed to a school at Athlone, and thence, after an interval of 

 two years, to another at Edgworthtown. He entered at Trinity 

 College, Dublin, as a sizar, in June 1745. His career here waa any- 

 thing but distinguished. He did not obtain a scholarship, and having 

 been idle, extravagant, and occasionally insubordinate, he took his 

 degree of B.A. two years after the regular time, in February 1749. 

 A violent and injudicious tutor seems however to have been greatly 

 responsible for the unsatisfactory nature of Goldsmith's college career. 



Goldsmith's father was now dead ; but his uncle, the Rev. Thomas 

 Contarine, who had already borne the principal part of the expenses 

 of his education, amply supplied the father's place. Yielding to his 

 uncle's wishes, Goldsmith consented to enter the church ; but he spent 

 in dissipation the two years which should have been giveu to prepara- 

 tion, and on applying for orders was rejected by the bishop, for what 

 reason is not exactly known, but probably it was on account of 

 professional incompetence, joined to the report of his dissipated habits. 

 He then obtained the situation of private tutor in the family of a 

 neighbouring gentleman, and very shortly gave it up in disgust. His 

 uncle Contarine now determined to prepare him for the profession of 

 the law, and sent him off to London for the purpose of keeping his 

 terms at the Temple ; but stopping at Dublin ou his way, he lost in 

 gambling the sum wherewith he had been furnished for the expenses 

 of his journey, and returned home penniless. The kindness of his 

 uncle was not yet exhausted ; and having forgiven him all hia former 

 offences, he sent him after a time to Edinburgh to study medicine. 

 He arrived there towards the close of 1752; and having attended 

 most of the medical professors, though without much assiduity, he 

 proceeded at the end of two years to Leyden, for the professed purpose 

 of completing his medical studies. He resided at Leyden about a 

 jear, studying chemistry under Gaubius and anatomy under Albums, 

 and at the same time indulging greatly in dissipation. 



From Leyden Goldsmith set out to make a tour of Europe on foot, 

 having with him, as is said, only one clean shirt and no money, and 

 trusting to his wits for support. The following passage in the ' Vicar 

 of Wakefield ' is supposed to describe his own travels : " I had some 

 knowledge of music, and now turned what was once my amusement 

 into a present means of subsistence. Whenever I approached a 

 peasant's house towards nightfall, I played one of my most merry 

 tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for 

 the next day." By means of this and other expedients he worked his 

 way through Flanders (stopping at Louvain), parts of France and 

 Germany, Switzerland (where he composed part of the ' Traveller '), 

 and the north of Italy. He remained six months at Padua, and if 

 (which is doubtful) ho ever took a medical degree, he must have taken 

 it there, or, as his first biographer suggested, at Louvain : unfortu- 

 nately the official records are lost in both of these places, so that it is 

 now impossible to ascertain the fact. Hearing while in Italy of the 

 death of his uncle and benefactor, he immediately turned his steps 

 towards England ; and having expended about a year on his travels, 

 landed at Dover in the autumn of 1756. 



Arrived in London, he was for a time an usher in a school at Peck- 

 ham, and being very speedily disgusted with this employment, next 

 an apothecary's assistant. The liberality of an old schoolfellow, who 

 accidentally discovered him, enabled him soon after to commence 

 practice as a physician ; and by the joint aid of medicine and litera- 

 ture (acting as reader in the printing-office of Richardson, the author 

 of 'Clarissa Harlowe'), he managed for some short time to earn a 

 scanty subsistence. In 1758 he obtained an appointment, which 

 might have eventually turned out lucrative, as physician to one of the 

 factories in India ; and some of his letters written at this time show 

 that he was very eager to proceed in that capacity to the East. In 

 order to meet the expenses of his outfit and voyage, he immediately 

 drew up and published proposals for printing by subscription his 

 ' Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Literature in Europe.' From 

 some unexplained cause however this appointment fell to the ground ; 

 and he did not pass an examination before the College of Surgeons, for 

 which he offered himself, whether with a view to his eastern appoint- 

 ment, or to a subsequent scheme of obtaining a post as hospital mate, is 

 not certain. He now fell back upon literature, and renewed an engage- 

 ment with Mr. Griffiths, the proprietor and publisher of the 'Monthly 

 Review,' to write for that journal, receiving in return a moderate salary 

 besides board and lodging. The engagement was iu the first instance to 

 last for a year ; but at the end of seven or eight months it was given 

 up by mutual consent. He published his ' Present State of Literature 

 in Europe 1 in 1759. In October of the same year he commenced 

 writing the 'Bee,' a series of light essays which was intended to 

 appear as a weekly periodical, but the issue of which ceased with the 

 eighth number. These were followed by contributions to Smollett's 

 'British Magazine,' the delightful 'Chinese Letter' in the 'Public 



