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play freely upon the subject, and did not confine himself to the orator's chief end-namely, to guide his audience to a particular resolution. "He can seldom confine himself to a simple businesslike view of the subject under discussion, or to close, rapid, compressed argumentation on it. On the contrary, he makes boundless excursions into all the regions of moral and political philosophy; is perpetually tracing up particular instances and subordinate principles to profound and comprehensive maxims; amplifying and expanding the most meagre materials into brief but comprehensive dissertations of political science, and incrusting (so to speak) the nucleus of the most insignificant fact with the most exquisite crystallisations of truth; while the whole composition glitters and sparkles again with a rich profusion of moral reflections, equally beautiful and just." "His exuberance of fancy" was "equally unfavourable to the attainment of the highest oratorical excellence. When a speaker indulges in very lengthened or elaborate imagery, a suspicion is sure to be engendered (and, except in one or two instances of very extraordinary mental structure, that suspicion is uniformly just) that he is scarcely in earnest ; that if he has an object, it is to commend his own eloquence rather than to convince his audience; that his inspiration is not the inspiration of nature; and for this very sufficient reason, that it is not natural for intense emotion to express itself in the fantastic forms of laboured imagery. When illustration is very abundant and elaborate, even the admiration it may excite will often be anything but friendly to the speaker's professed object, nay, the very reverse; the admiration will resemble that which is excited by a fine piece of poetry. . . . That it is possible to indulge in such exuberance of illustration, as to suspend the current of strong passions, and defeat the orator's avowed object, it is needless to say."

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Farther, he was either ignorant of the feelings of his audience, or too vehement and self-willed to try to conciliate them. "As a political tactician, Burke was far inferior to many of his contemporaries. There was, in fact, a singular disproportion between his knowledge of human nature in general, and his knowledge of individual character; or, if he possessed the latter at all, he was strangely incapable of using it to any practical purpose. understood better than he did, that abstract principles of policy must be modified by actually existing circumstances; yet this very same maxim, of such profound truth and such immense value, he showed a singular inability to apply to individual conduct, on the small scale and within the limited sphere of parties. In the conduct of any measure, he never deigned to consult prejudices or to soften enmity. He had no patience to bear with folly; he was only irritated by it. So far from any attempt to conciliate

his political opponents, he often exasperated hostility by setting them all at open defiance, and would frequently pour out the most bitter scorn and invective, when the most guarded and temperate style of expression was essential to success. Never checking the impetuosity of his passions, he often contended for mere trifles with a pertinacity which could only have been justified in the defence of principles of vital importance; trifles, the timely and graceful concession of which would have insured success, which would have far more than counterbalanced such a sacrifice. He never seemed nicely to calculate, with a view to his own conduct, the temper and conduct of the House, or the exact relation of parties in it; thus he never cared to conceal or disguise his opinions on any subject whatever, but uniformly expressed them boldly and fully. Now, though we may admire the blunt honesty of such conduct, none can commend its prudence; nothing but the most imperious necessity could justify it."

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774.

Goldsmith's life offers an exception to the usual even tenor of the literary career. His fortunes were as chequered as restless imprudence and romantic generosity could make them. His father was a good-hearted Irish clergyman, the supposed original of Dr Primrose in the Vicar of Wakefield,' and of the kindly old preacher in the 'Deserted Village.' Oliver was born at Pallas, in Longford, the fourth of a family of seven. When he was two years old his father removed to the more comfortable living of Lissoy, in West Meath. His first teacher was a garrulous old soldier, who had served under Marlborough, and delighted to entertain the boys with tales of marvellous adventure. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar, in the year of the great Jacobite rising, 1745. What he afterwards said of Parnell's college course may be applied to his own-"His progress through the college course of study was probably marked with but little splendour; his imagination might have been too warm to relish the cold logic of Burgersdicius, or the dreary subtleties of Smiglesius; but it is certain that as a classical scholar few could equal him." He had no liking for mathematics, but, as he afterwards boasted, he could "turn an ode of Horace with any of them." He is said to have more than once been in difficulties with the heads of the college from his love of boisterous frolic. He left college with no fixed aim. His father designed him for the Church, but after he had spent two years at home in preparation, he failed to give satisfaction to the bishop, and could not obtain orders. He next thought of the law, and set off for London; but falling into good company at Dublin, he spent all his money there, and returned

home in disgrace. He was then fitted out for the study of medicine in Edinburgh, but was much too restless to pass decorously through the ordinary curriculum and settle down into a quiet practice. After studying (or at least staying) two years in Edinburgh, he went off to the Continent, and spent some time in the medical schools of Leyden and Louvain. Thereafter, in a restless spirit of adventure, he wandered through Switzerland, Italy, and France, supporting himself mainly, it is said, by playing on the flute for food and lodging. In 1756 he returned to London, and there tried various ways of making a livelihood; being successively assistant to an apothecary, physician (among the poorer orders), proof-corrector in Richardson's press, usher in Dr Milner's school at Peckham, critic for the Monthly Review,' and usher again. In 1758 he tried to pass at Surgeon's Hall as a hospital mate, but was rejected, and thus driven back finally on literature. His first independent work was 'The Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe,' which appeared anonymously in 1759. From that date till his death, in 1774, he received steady work from the booksellers, and but for his imprudent generosity and love of finery, might have lived in comfort, if not in luxury. His chief productions were 'The Bee,' a weekly periodical, which reached only eight numbers, lasting through October and November, 1759; 'Chinese Letters,' contributed to Newbery's Public Ledger' in 1760, and afterwards published separately under the title of 'The Citizen of the World;' 'The History of England, in a series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son,' 1762; The Vicar of Wakefield,' written and sold in 1764, but not published till 1766; 'The Traveller,' 1764; the comedy of The Good-Natured Man,' performed in 1768; History of Rome,' 1769; 'The Deserted Village,' 1770; History of England,' in four volumes, 1771; 'She Stoops to Conquer,' performed in 1773; 'History of Animated Nature,'

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"The Doctor," as he was called, had not a handsome exterior. Miss Reynolds once toasted him as "the ugliest man she knew." Boswell says "His person was short, his countenance coarse and vulgar, his deportment that of the scholar awkwardly affecting the easy gentleman." Judge Day's description is more favourable: person he was short-about five feet five or six inches; strong but not heavy in make; rather fair in complexion, with brown hair-such, at least, as could be distinguished from his wig. His features were plain but not repulsive certainly not so when lighted up by conversation. His manners were simple, natural, and perhaps on the whole, we may say, not polished; at least, without the refinement and good-breeding which the exquisite polish of his compositions would lead us to expect."

His naturally strong constitution was soon impaired by his hardships. At the age of thirty-one he wrote thus to his brother: "Though I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I am not that strong active man you once knew me. You scarcely can conceive how much eight years of disappointment, anguish, and study, have worn me down." The climate of London was trying to him, and he frequently had to recruit by taking lodgings in the country.

The strong points of Goldsmith's intellect centred in his power of easy and graceful literary composition. He was not a profound scholar, and his mind was neither very comprehensive nor very productive. His fame rests upon the charms of his style: he tried nearly every kind of composition-poetry, comedy, fiction, history, essay-writing, natural science and, as Johnson said in his wellknown epitaph, "whatever he touched he adorned." He criticised, as he wrote, with exquisite taste. The fragments that Mr Forster has reprinted from the 'Monthly Review,' Goldsmith's earliest performances, are models of just criticism. His delicately-sympathetic nature was a peculiar qualification for appreciating the works of others. This also gave him his singular power of reading character. His drawing of the members of the Literary Club, in the poem "Retaliation,' ," is a supreme work of art. On the strength of Garrick's well-known epigram—

"Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,

Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll "

it has sometimes been said that he was very dull in conversation, and that in the Literary Club he was often made a butt. As Boswell admits, his conversational dulness has been much exaggerated. Undoubtedly he was quicker with his pen than with his tongue. A man of fine taste needs time to mature his thoughts; and Goldsmith, careless of his reputation, often opened his mouth without the least premeditation. As to his being made a butt, it was part of his peculiar humour to sacrifice himself for the amusement of the company by affecting ridiculous vanity and stupidity. Many of the anecdotes of his vanity bear evidence of the stolidity of the narrators-their incapability of understanding a joke or entering into the fun of humorous affectation.

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In the matter of emotion, he was one of those beings that are often found in extremes. When fortune went well with him, he was as happy as the day was long. So mobile were his sympathies that he could not be sad in merry company, and was easily beguiled out of his sorrows. Yet he was also easily dispirited, and often took dark views of the future. Self-respect kept him from making many confidants of his heartless anticipations. He often assumed an appearance of gaiety when there was no small anxiety

within; but we find him, in an affectionate letter to his brother in Ireland, complaining of a "settled melancholy" and "gloomy habits of thinking;" and he sometimes laid his cares before his sturdy friend Johnson. After a happy deliverance from gloomy apprehensions, he would entertain his friends with ludicrous pictures of his previous distress. He was a warm friend and a generous enemy; quick to take offence, and easily pacified. His heart overflowed with tenderness: he loved the happy faces of children, and could not bear to see misery. With his rare skill in divining the thoughts of others, and detecting what they prided themselves upon, he might have been a stinging satirist; but his tenderness, though it could not restrain, always induced him to soften the dart.

The imprudence of his conduct has often been dilated upon. As a young man he was flighty, and more bent upon seeing the world than willing to subside into a staid professional career. His life was one long battle with imprudence. He was thirty-one when he finally settled down to authorship; and then he never thought of laying up money for an evil day, but spent faster than he earned, and died two thousand pounds in debt. "His purse replenished," says Judge Day, "the season of relaxation and pleasure took its turn, in attending the theatres, Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and other scenes of gaiety and amusement. When his funds were dissipated-and they fled more rapidly from his being the dupe of many artful persons, male and female, who practised upon his benevolence-he returned to his literary labours, and shut himself up from society to provide fresh matter for his bookseller, and fresh supplies for himself." There are several well-known anecdotes of his imprudent generosity. On one occasion about the beginning of his career as an author, he pawned a suit of clothes that he had on loan to save his landlady from an execution for debt. Throughout all his struggles he continued to send money to his poor mother in Ireland; and when he died, "on the stairs of his apartment there was the lamentation of the old and infirm, and the sobbing of women, poor objects of his charity, to whom he had never turned a deaf ear."

Opinions. Goldsmith is not known to have held strong opinions, as Johnson did, either in politics or in sectarian religion. He was more of an observer than of a doctrinaire. He had seen much of mankind, and interested himself more in noting characteristic expression and conduct than in gaining adherents to any favourite views. The point of view of the Chinese Letters is characteristic. Himself emancipated by temperament and education from nearly every mode of traditionary prejudice, he regarded as absurd and mischievous many of the English opinions, customs, and institu

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