LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. 



complete gentleman. No man had the art of displaying, with more advantage as a writer, 

 whatever literary acquisitions he made. His mind resembled a fertile but thin soil ; there 

 was a quick but not a strong vegetation of whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep 

 root could be struck. The oak of the forest did not grow there ; but the elegant shrubbery, 

 and the fragrant parterre, appeared in gay succession. It has been generally circulated, and 

 believed, that he was a mere fool in conversation. In allusion to this, Mr. Horatio Walpole, 

 who admired his writings, said, he was "an inspired idiot;" andGarrick describes him as one: 



-for shortness call'd Noll, 



Who wrote like an angel, and talk'd like poor P"M. 



t 



But, in reality, these descriptions are greatly exaggerated. He had, no doubt, a more than 

 common share of that hurry of ideas, which we often find in his countrymen, and which some- 

 times introduces a laughable confusion in expressing them. He was very much what the 

 French call un et vurdie ; and from vanity, and an eager desire of being conspicuous wherever 

 he was, he frequently talked carelessly, without any knowledge of the subject, or even with- 

 out thought. Those who were any ways distinguished, excited envy in him to so ridiculous 

 an excess, that the instances of it are hardly credible. He, I am told, had no settled system 

 of any sort, so that his conduct must not be too strictly criticised; but his affections were 

 social and generous ; and when he had money, he bestowed it liberally. His desires of ima- 

 ginary consequence frequently predominated over his attention to truth. 



In the opinion of many of the literati, Goldsmith rivalled in prose writing, and even sur- 

 passed, Dr. Johnson. His prose has been admitted as the model of perfection, and the stan- 

 dard of the English language. Dr. Johnson says, "Goldsmith was a man of such variety of 

 powers, and such felicity of performance, that he seemed to excel in whatever he attempted; 

 a man who had the art of being minute without tediousness, and general without confusion ; 

 whose language was capacious without exuberance; exact without restraint; and easy with- 

 out weakness." 



The most admired of his prosaic writings are the Vicar of Wakefield, Essays, Letters from a 

 Nobleman to his Son, and Life of Parnetl. 



With respect to the Vicar of Wakefield, it is certainly a composition which has justly merit- 

 ed the applause of all discerning persons as one of the best novels in the English language. 

 The diction is chaste, correct, and elegant. The characters are drawn to the life ; and the 

 scenes it exhibits are ingeniously variegated with humour and sentiment. The hero of the 

 piece displays the most shining virtues that can adorn relative and social life ; sincere in his 

 professions, humane and generous in his disposition, he is himself a pattern of the character 

 he represents, enforcing that excellent maxim, that example is more powerful than precept. 



