1770. out; and he desired Nicholls to read it aloud to him. He listened to it with fixed attention, and soon exclaimed "This Et. 42. The judgment has since been affirmed by hundreds of thousands of readers, and any adverse appeal is little likely now to be lodged against it. Within the circle of its claims and pretensions, a more entirely satisfactory and delightful poem than the Deserted Village was probably never written. It lingers in the memory where once it has entered; and such is the softening influence, on the heart even more than the understanding, of the mild, tender, yet clear light which makes its images so distinct and lovely, that there are few who have not wished to rate it higher than poetry of yet higher genius. "What true and pretty pastoral images,' "cooks of France combine to make new sauces to it. As to the soul, perhaps they "may have none on the continent, but I do think we have such things in England; "Shakspeare, for example, I believe had several to his share." Nor can I say farewell to one with whose wit and wisdom I have enriched so many of these pages, without borrowing (from that striking passage which Richard Sharp quotes from his common-place book in Letters and Essays, 44) what I have always thought as delicate a critical remark as ever was made. "In former times, they loved, I will "not say tediousness, but length, and a train of circumstances in a narration. "The vulgar do so still it gives an air of reality to the facts, it fixes the atten66 tion, raises and keeps in suspense their expectation, and supplies the place of "their little and lifeless imagination; and it keeps pace with the slow motion of "their own thoughts. Tell them a story as you would to a man of wit; it will appear to them as an object seen in the night by a flash of lightning: but when you have placed it in various lights, and various positions, they will come at last "to see and feel it as well as others. But we need not confine ourselves to the vulgar, and to understandings beneath our own. Circumstance ever was, and ever will be, the essence both of poetry and oratory. It has in some sort the same effect upon every mind that it has upon that of the populace; and I fear "the quickness and delicate impatience of these polished times are but the "forerunners of the decline of all those beautiful arts which depend upon the "imagination... Homer, the father of circumstance, has occasion for the same apology." As I transcribe this passage a return is published of the results of the first year's experience of the Manchester Free Library, from which it appears that no books of any class have excelled in popularity, as tested by the frequency of the demand made for them, the novels of De Foe. The secret of this is explained by Gray. * Works, v. 36. "He thought Goldsmith a genuine poet," Mr. Nicholls adds. 1770. Æt. 42. 66 exclaimed Burke, years after the poet's death," has Gold"smith in his Deserted Village! They beat all: Pope, and Philips, and Spenser too, in my opinion.' But opinions that seem exaggerated may in truth be often reconciled to very sober sense; and, where any extraordinary popularity has existed, good reason is generally to be shown for it. Of the many clever and indeed wonderful writings that from age to age are poured forth into the world, what is it that puts upon the few the stamp of immortality, and makes them seem indestructible as nature? What is it but their wise rejection of everything superfluous ?—being grave histories, or natural stories, of everything that is not history or nature? -being poems, of everything that is not poetry, however much it may resemble it; and especially of that prodigal accumulation of thoughts and images, which, till properly sifted and selected, is as the unhewn to the chiselled marble? What is it, in short, but that unity, completeness, polish, and perfectness in every part, which Goldsmith attained? It may be said that his range is limited, and that whether in his poetry or his prose, he seldom wanders far from the ground of his own experience: but within that circle, how potent is his magic, what a command it exercises over the happiest forms of art, with what a versatile grace it moves between what saddens us in humour or smiles on us in grief, and how unerring our response of laughter or of tears! Thus, his pictures may be small; may be far from historical pieces, amazing or confounding us; may be even, if severest criticism will have it so, mere happy tableaux de genre hanging up against our walls;-but, their colours are exquisite and unfading; they have that universal expression which never "That is," Burke adds, "in the pastoral, for I go no farther." Letter to Shackleton, 6th May 1780. Correspondence, ii. 347. 1770. rises higher than the comprehension of the humblest, yet is ever on a level with the understanding and appreciation of the Et. 42. loftiest; they possess that familiar sweetness of household expression which wins them welcome, alike where the rich inhabit, and in huts where poor men lie; and there, improving and gladdening all, they are likely to hang for ever. Johnson, though he had taken equal interest in the progress of this second poem, contributing to the manuscript the four lines which stand last, yet thought it inferior to the Traveller. But time has not confirmed that judgment. Were it only that the field of contemplation in the Traveller is somewhat desultory, and that (as a later poet pointed out) its successor has an endearing locality, and introduces us to beings with whom the imagination is ready to contract a friendship, the higher place must be given to the Deserted Village. Goethe tells us the transport with which the circle he now lived in hailed it, when they found themselves once more as in another beloved Wakefield; and with what zeal he at once set to work to translate it into German.* All the characteristics of the first poem seem to me developed in the second; * The passage from his Autobiography is well worth quoting: "A little poem, "which we passionately received into our circle, allowed us from henceforward to "think of nothing else. Goldsmith's Deserted Village necessarily delighted every 66 one at that grade of cultivation, in that sphere of thought. Not a living "and active, but a departed, vanished existence was described; all that one so "readily looked upon, that one loved, prized, sought passionately in the present, "to take part in it with the cheerfulness of youth. Highdays and holydays in the country, church consecrations and fairs, the solemn assemblage of the elders "under the village linden-tree, supplanted in its turn by the lively delight of 'youth in dancing, while the more educated classes show their sympathy. How "seemly did these pleasures appear, moderated as they were by an excellent "country pastor, who understood how to smooth down and remove all that went too far, that gave occasion to quarrel and dispute. Here again we found an "honest Wakefield, in his well-known circle, yet no longer in his living bodily "form, but as a shadow recalled by the soft mournful tones of the elegiac poet. "The very thought of this picture is one of the happiest possible, when once the "design is formed to evoke once more an innocent past with a graceful melancholy. "And in this kindly endeavour, how well has the Englishman succeeded in every 66 1770. Æt. 42. with as chaste a simplicity, with as choice a selectness of natural expression, in verse of as musical cadence; but with yet greater earnestness of purpose, and a far more human interest. Nor is that purpose to be lightly dismissed, because it more concerns the heart than the understanding, and is sentimental rather than philosophical. The accumulation of wealth has not brought about man's diminution, nor is trade's proud empire threatened with decay: but too eager are the triumphs of both, to be always conscious of evils attendant on even the benefits they bring,-and of those it was the poet's purpose to remind us. The lesson can never be thrown away. No material prosperity can be so great, but that underneath it, and indeed because of it, will not still be found much suffering and sadness; much to remember that is commonly forgotten, much to attend to that is almost always neglected. Trade would not thrive the less, though shortened somewhat of its unfeeling train; nor wealth enjoy fewer blessings, if its unwieldy pomp less often spurned the cottage from the green. "It is a melancholy "thing to stand alone in one's country," said the Lord Leicester who built Holkham, when complimented on the completion of that princely dwelling. "I look round, not a house is to be seen but mine. I am the giant of "Giant-castle, and have eat up all my neighbours."* There is no man who has risen upward in the world, even by ways the most honourable to himself and kindly to others, who sense of the word! I shared the enthusiasm for this charming poem with "Gotter, who was more felicitous than myself with the translation undertaken by us both; for I had too painfully tried to imitate in our language the delicate significance of the original, and thus had well agreed with single passages, but "not with the whole." Truth and Poetry from my own Life (translated by Mr. Oxenford), i. 474. And see i. 506. * When asked who was his nearest neighbour, he replied "the King of Den"mark." Potter's Observations on the Poor Laws, quoted in Campbell's British Poets (Ed. 1841), 526. 1770. may not be said to have a deserted village, sacred to the tenderest and fondest recollections, which it is well that his Et. 42. fancy and his feeling should at times revisit. Goldsmith looked into his heart, and wrote. From that great city in which his hard-spent life had been diversified with so much care and toil, he travelled back to the memory of lives more simply passed, of more cheerful labour, of less anxious care, of homely affections and humble joys for which the world and all its successes offer nothing in exchange. There are few things in the range of English poetry more deeply touching than the closing image of these linesthe hunted creature panting to its home! In all my wanderings round this world of care, I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, And, as an hare whom hounds and horns pursue, Here to return-and die at home at last. * * This thought was continually at his heart. In his hardly less beautiful prose he has said the same thing more than once, for, as I have elsewhere remarked, no one ever borrowed from himself oftener or more unscrupulously than Goldsmith did. "A city like this," he writes in letter ciii of the Citizen of the World, "is "the soil for great virtues and great vices. . . There are no pleasures, sensual or "sentimental, which this city does not produce; yet, I know not how, I could "not be content to reside here for life. There is something so seducing in that spot in which we first had existence, that nothing but it can please. Whatever "vicissitudes we experience in life, however we toil, or wheresoever we wander, our fatigued wishes still recur to home for tranquillity: we long to die in that 66 spot which gave us birth, and in that pleasing expectation find an opiate for every calamity." The poet Waller, too, wished to die "like the stag where he was "roused." (Johnson, iii. 338.) 66 |