E. S. Lang Buckland

“ Throughout there is that sincerity of sentiment which separates and guides those deeper natures who amid all joys know the vein of sorrow prevailing in the human heart. From yearning aspiration comes that exaltation which connotes the higher character. It is this element that we are apt to forget in our humorists. Lamb, Hood, Thackeray, and Goldsmith, had strains of reflection which went more into the very heart of being and not being, fulfilling and failing, living and dying, than we can ever discover in those who decorate their days with a clamant seriousness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here was a sweet, weak, pure, and gentle, sympathetic lad, only a boy in heart and strength, and not even [Pg 38] a child in that hardness life demands, stepping he knew not whither, meeting the world in an actual and visible solitude, and a loneliness of soul beyond the force of words to tell. There are those who, having passed their twentieth year, are already men of mark and power. Not such a one was poor Noll. Through ceaseless dependence and uncertainty in both his purpose and his position in life, he tardily gained that dignity and validity that attends the realisation of man's estate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Johnson, the Rambler; and Goldsmith, the Citizen.
The Citizen of the World is a capital collection of essays, possessed of an imperishable interest and significance, and a charm as faultless and unfailing as that compassion and consuming charity which never pass from the page, and never deserted the heart of their gentle author. Still, this spirit touches and moves the heart. He saw the wrongs and the goodness, the truth and the untruth, and he knew the minds of men. This cosmopolitan saw Russia, the enemy of the peace of Europe, and foresaw its vast advancing, aggressive power. ”

“ It was springtime in the poet's heart. This was his era of heroic hope, immortal dreaming, and Divine revelation.
Following the traditions of his family, he would have become a clergyman. It was not want of religious sentiment that precluded his feeling sincerely called to this Divine office, but the unutterable profoundness of his reverence. With all his laughter he ever had the pure spirit of the pastor. For the faithful fulfilment of the ministry, in that marvellous picture of a parson's life given in The Deserted Village he has revealed a living and an enlightening ideal. ”

“ All natures in some sphere, touch the infinite. In the silence of his great heart, the radiance of his intellect, and in his uttered word, the very soul of Goldsmith's genius lies in a loving understanding. In this man there flows and shines the very grace of the very Christ. Unfailing gentleness lives lighted by divinity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Underlying currents of embarrassments were as constant as the grace and purity and beauty of his heart, and more close to him than that they could not be. Those men of business who never had their dues met, were better able to bear the losses than would have been the poor pensioners whom Goldsmith's compassion enriched. His was never the philanthropy of reasoned prudence, but that of impotent prodigality. ”

“ No poet was ever moved in reverence for a fairer personification of a pure ideal.
It was a most stately, graceful, gracious, and fascinating very old lady whom, when years, and many years, had come and gone, Hazlitt met and greeted. Still she remembered and still she revered the loved and moving heart of Oliver Goldsmith. It is his greatness, and it is his glory that his soul could and did appeal to the sublime spirit of pure womanhood. Of none could greater, or more than this be said. Man need not crave for more, or aspire on earth to purer heights. ”

“ It makes men rich and respectable, but it is the death of poetry. Prudence has no genius. It cannot perceive its own deplorable delimitations. It may not fathom the vagaries of high minds. Goldsmith was not meant to make his own fortune. He was intended to make what is far dearer and better than prosperity—hope and happiness for many and many a heart, and many and many a home. Burns was not prudent, Byron was not; Johnson was not industrious for the pure sake and love of labour. ”

“ Nor kings nor warriors rule, but thinkers, and amongst these rulers in the high realm of thought and spiritual power, highest of all in every age and clime—the poet! Hidden in the soul's depths we discover an earnestness which in the outward light-hearted man we fail to recognise. That one we thought we knew so well, we find, too late, we knew, if not altogether ill, at least too slightingly. The poem is doubtless too didactic at times to always move consummate delight. There is a ring more Latin than English in the line,
"Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content." ”

“ That semblance of earnestness accepted by the populace often lacks poetic force and sublime sanction. The Traveller attains the heights and depths of the Divine communion that unites poetry with prayer. The speeding pen, the quivering lips, the moving mind, and beating heart, are slight contrasted with this prayerful yearning of the unseen and spiritual. Poetry is the unutterable, yet sweetly and strangely uttered voicing of the soul ineffable. ”

“ Oliver Goldsmith was the most pure and suasive spirit of his age. To this day his gentle touch and soothing spell, by that magnetic power that flows through purity of sympathy, still sway the heart. His charming radiance and pure, divine delight move and master those who admire and honour this all-loving soul and most graceful writer. In reading his works, there is for all, and there must ever be, that sense of compassion and that absolving perception which must have moved the finer feelings of those who lived in his own time, and actually knew the man himself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the time came, and he might have left his work in London and gone home to Ireland for a while, it was too late, for his dear and gentle mother, old Uncle Contarine, and brother Henry had passed away. It may be hard to think that an indolent boy who squanders without scruple the money you have with great embarrassment raised for his benefit loves you devotedly, and has dedicated his whole heart, and life, and love to yours. It is difficult, too, to think that a vain little man is, in his soul, an earnest great one. ”

“ Those were happy days passed in heart-to-heart friendships and affections, and they were merry hours that sped so swiftly at the Literary Club. The great are never greater than in the hearts of their homes and the simplicities of their friendships. At this club the gods forgot their power and high beings laid aside their loftiness. In the midst we find the man they teased the man most welcome; that one that all affected to despise, each in his inmost heart unfeignedly respected. The man most laughed at was most loved. Oliver Goldsmith made the mirth of things. ”

“ There is a universal ministry, higher than divided priesthoods. Oliver Goldsmith, poet, playwright, and humorist, was a veritable minister of God. Poetry has one eternal test. The poem must ever be a very part of the very life of the poet, his very soul, the breathing hope and the vital blood of his whole being. This is true of Goldsmith's two great poems. They are in themselves a sufficing and beautiful biography. We know the heart of the man from these sublime outpourings of the soul. For every word and every line we love and honour Goldsmith. ”

“ The epitaph on Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey runs: "He left no spheres of writing untouched or unadorned by his pen. Noble, pure, and delicate, his memory will last as long as society retains affection, friendship is not devoid of honour, and reading wants not her admirers." Intimately we are guided most of all by those whom most we love. The eyes may close, but not the life. There is the knowledge of loving power [Pg 74] wielded on the heart by those whom men call dead. There is a soul in men rising beyond visible activities ”

“ Goldsmith was always a lover of Latin poetry and classic models. In this perplexing youthful time of transition, he had imbued his mind with romance and with those higher aspirations of the poets of all ages and eras in which their utterances, growing religious, pertain to life in its love and light [Pg 20] and lofty purity. Literature yields nothing more enthralling than those passages in which sublimity is seized, and the mind of man is commanded to rise above the pressing issue and the material care.
Prudence has many advantages. ”

“ In all the careers of the essentially great, there are times when laughter will mingle with the honour we bestow, and compassion oust our adoration from its throne. Laughter may grow derisive and compassion scornful. Contempt has one virtue—it recoils. Derision can find no room within the fathoming comprehension that does not forget the ceaseless pressure of those ruthless surroundings in which often noblest lives are framed.
Pope's line on Gay pictures Goldsmith:
"In wit, a man—simplicity, a child." ”

“ 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; [Pg 80] 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." ”

“ Not less does his purifying power, with its elevating inspiration, survive. It is a silent and unseen, but still a lofty, a lasting, and an impressive influence. Lovers of Goldsmith feel friendship and affection for the moving and immortal spirit of the man. His works need no learned commentary. The common heart is their sufficing commentary. ”

“ For all Fame brings its rich rewards. For Goldsmith the greatest of these was Johnson's friendship and esteem. The bond that bound these two was this, that they were always the last to abandon the poor and the worthless. Tired out with failure or importunity, other men of kindly heart might leave the incorrigible to their fate, but not Samuel Johnson nor Oliver Goldsmith. A better basis for friendship could not be. ”

“ It is almost diverting to find Goldsmith himself baffled, if not beaten, in seeking prosperity from literature, majestically introducing others into the sacred sphere. His name was sufficient to lead others to those rewards that he himself needed even more than they did. Like Johnson, Goldsmith wrote many introductions to books and various dedications for authors, who availed themselves both of the influence and of the ability of these distinguished leaders in the realm of letters. ”

“ No sooner was Goldsmith known, than a bright devoted band of loving spirits clustered [Pg 49] round, loving the life of the man and feeling the help and the hope that it gave. Simplicity sways its sceptre. Purity of heart is a Divine power. Not through his position and achievements, but for himself, men and women loved and honoured him. Burke and Reynolds became his devoted friends and constant allies. ”

“ In the morning when master Oliver expected to part for ever with that guinea in his pocket, he learned the actual state of things and left no poorer than he came, but all the richer for the laughter and the merriment and the good wishes of the friends, who, to divert and amuse both him and themselves, had treated their guest so well.
In Trinity College, at the time when Goldsmith studied there as a sizar, menial offices were involved in this dubious position. ”

“ The wandering boy, stricken with grief at the pain and the poverty he sees, alike in town and village in Ireland, foreshadows and unveils the coming man, who, knowing his own anxieties, was ever more distressed by the cares and afflictions he beheld than by those through which he was at any time himself the sufferer. ”

“ There is a grace—nay, more, there is a genius in transition. The exile and the emigration of the Irish were not, and are not now, exclusively territorial, nor is the spiritual pang of leaving loved homes and cherished hearts entirely sentimental. Of the Irish it may be said that, of all the races, their pure love of home is the deepest, and the most faithful and devoted. Often the enforced exile that must be endured had no solace save death and the grave for peace—and a home. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Goldsmith family sprang originally from Crayford, a nestling village in Kent. This southern county, in all its loveliness, can thus add this high honour to its other though not greater glories. "To be the best beloved of English writers," said Thackeray, "what a title that is for a man!" This he gave to Goldsmith. It is a title that none will dispute. Here is a love that will never pass away from our hearts. Of Oliver Goldsmith, as poet and novelist, essay-writer, wit and playwright, it may be said that his distinction and celebrity are essentially English. ”

“ It may seem difficult to discover a hero rejoicing in comrades discovered in a village ale-house. Still less should we expect to find in a heart pleased so easily a man of refined and exquisite sensibility. Oliver Goldsmith, revelling in friends coarse and crass to superficial vision, must have found in them gleams of holiness that lives less loving could not discern. ”