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 That his histories have been superseded is due far more to changes in attitude and criticism and the revolutionary results of modern research than to intrinsic failures in the works themselves.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.

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: