Oliver Goldsmith

“ All encouragements to merit are misapplied, which make the author too rich to continue his profession. There can be nothing more just than the old observation, that authors, like running horses, should be fed but not fattened. If we would continue them in our service, we should reward them with a little money and a great deal of praise, still keeping their avarice subservient to their ambition. Not that I think a writer incapable of filling an employment with dignity, I would only insinuate, that when made a bishop or statesman, he will continue to please us as a writer no longer. ”

“ I must own it as my opinion, that if criticism be at all requisite to promote the interests of learning, its rules should be taken from among the inhabitants, and adapted to the genius and temper of the country it attempts to refine. I must own it, though, perhaps, by this opinion's prevailing, many a scholium of the ancients, and many a folio of criticism translated from the French, now in repute among us, would infallibly sink into oblivion. English taste, like English liberty, should be restrained only by laws of its own promoting. ”

“ Yet getting a play on even in three or four years, is a privilege reserved only for the happy few who have the arts of courting the manager as well as the muse: who have adulation to please his vanity, powerful patrons to support their merit, or money to indemnify disappointment. The poet must act like our beggars at Christmas, who lay the first shilling on the plate for themselves. Thus all wit is banished from the stage, except it be supported by friends, or fortune, and poets are seldom over-burthened with either. ”

“ And this, indeed, is all the English had a right to expect in a contest of this nature, nor have they any just reason to regret not being chosen supreme in taste as well as truth; for if we only consider, how different our manners are from those of every other nation on the continent; how little we are visited by travellers of discernment; how ignorant our neighbours are of our various absurdities and humours; if we consider this, it cannot be expected, that our works of taste, which imitate our peculiar manners, can please those that are unacquainted with the originals themselves. ”

“ The finest sentiment, and the most weighty truth, may put on a pleasing face, and it is even virtuous to jest when serious advice might be disgusting. But instead of this, the most trifling performance among us now, assumes all the didactic stiffness of wisdom. The most diminutive son of fame, or of famine, has his we and his us, his firstlys and his secondlys as methodical, as if bound in cow-hide, and closed with clasps of brass. ”

“ Before this, the works of art were remarkable only for the vastness of design, and seemed the productions of giants, not of ordinary men; learning was another name for magic, or to give it its real appellation, imposture. But those improvers saw there was more excellence in captivating the judgment, than in raising a momentary astonishment: in their arts they imitated only such parts of nature, as might please in the representation; in the sciences, they cultivated such parts of knowlege, as it was every man's duty to be acquainted with. ”

“ The charming pedants are not to be caught like some damsels to be seen in Holland, by dumb shew, by a squeeze of the hand, or the ogling of a broad eye: but must be pursued at once through all the labyrinths of the Newtonian system, the mazy metaphysics of Locke, and still more, the variations of female inclination. I have seen as bright a circle of beauty at the chymical lectures of Ruelle, as gracing the court at Versailles. Wisdom never appears so charming, as when graced and protected by beauty. ”

“ Those who are acquainted with writing, know that our language runs almost naturally into blank verse. The writers of our novels, romances, and all of this class, who have no notion of stile, naturally hobble into this unharmonious measure. If rhymes, therefore, be more difficult, for that very reason, I would have our poets write in rhyme. Such a restriction upon the thought of a good poet, often lifts and encreases the vehemence of every sentiment; for fancy, like a fountain, plays highest by diminishing the aperture. ”

“ Every intermediate image of want, banishment, or sorrow, receives a lustre from its distant influence. With this in view, the patriot, philosopher, and poet, have often looked with calmness on disgrace and famine, and rested on their straw with chearful serenity. Even the last terrors of departing nature abate of their severity, and look kindly on him, who considers his sufferings as a passport to immortality, and lays his sorrows on the bed of fame. ”

“ She gives the labours of your brain to her maid, to be cut into shreds for curling her hair; while the laced footman, who carries the gaudy livery of luxury, insults your appearance, who bear the livery of indigence.
'But granting your excellence has at last forced envy to confess, that your works have some merit; this then is all the reward you can expect while living. However, for this tribute of applause, you must expect persecution. You will be reputed the author of scandal which you have never seen, of verses you despise, and of sentiments directly contrary to your own. ”

“ Sure pride itself has dictated to the fellows of our colleges, the absurd passion of being attended at meals, and on other public occasions, by these poor men, who, willing to be scholars, come in upon some charitable foundation. It implies a contradiction, for men to be at once learning the liberal arts, and at the same time treated as slaves, at once studying freedom, and practising servitude. ”

“ But while I describe Italy as thus fallen from her former excellence, I cannot restrain the pleasure of mentioning one or two poets who seem born to redeem the honour of their country. Metastasio has restored nature in all her beauteous simplicity: no poet ever painted more conformably to truth, nor is there any whose characters speak a more heart-felt passion. His language also, if a foreigner may be allowed to determine, excells even that of Tasso, and his scenery is infinitely superior. ”

“ No matter what the play may be, it is the actor who draws an audience. He throws life into all; all are in spirits and merry, in at one door and out at another; the spectator, in a fool's paradise, knows not what all this means till the last act concludes in matrimony. The piece pleases our critics, because it talks old English; and it pleases the galleries, because it has fun. True taste, or even common sense, are out of the question.
But great art must be sometimes used before they can thus impose upon the public. ”

“ Men of real genius, were lost in the multitude, or, as in a world of fools, it were folly to aim at being an only exception, obliged to conform to every prevailing absurdity of the times. Original productions seldom appeared, and learning, as if grown superanuated, bestowed all its panegyric upon the vigour of its youth, and turned encomiast upon its former atchievements. ”

“ But as the artist, to give vivid perceptions must be perspicuous and concise, and yet to exhibit usefulness requires mihere are two opposite qualities required in the writer, in one of which his imagination, in the other his reasoning faculty is every moment liable to offend; what has he in this case to guide him? Taste is, perhaps, his only director. Taste in writing, is the exhibition of the greatest quantity of beauty and of use, that may be admitted into any description without counteracting each other. ”

“ Perhaps, while I am writing, a shepherdess of threescore is listening to the pastoral tale of a French abbe; a warm imagination might paint her in all the splendor of ripened beauty, reclined on a paste-board rock; might fancy her lover, with looks inexpressibly tender, ravishing a kiss from the snowy softness of one of her hands, while the other holds a crook according to pastoral decorum. ”

“ Our reputation among foreigners will quickly be discontinued, when we discontinue our efforts to deserve it, and shall we despise their praise? Are our new absurdities, with which no nation more abounds, to be left unnoticed? Is the pleasure such performances give upon the perusal, to be entirely given up? If these are all matters of indifference, it then signifies nothing, whether we are to be entertained with the actor or the poet, with fine sentiments, or painted canvas, or whether the dancer, or the carpenter, be constituted master of the ceremonies. ”

“ If then, there ever comes a time, when taste is so far depraved among us, that critics shall load every work of genius with unnecessary comment, and quarter their empty performances, with the substantial merit of an author, both for subsistence and applause; if there comes a time, when censure shall speak in storms, but praise be whispered in the breeze, while real excellence often finds shipwreck in either ”

“ The similitude between the rise and decline of ancient and modern learning is so obvious, that it scarcely requires an illustration. We may have seen, that wherever the poet was permitted to improve his native language, polite learning flourished; where the critic undertook the same task, it never rose to any degree of perfection. We have seen the genius of every country make more feeble advances to excellence in proportion, as the number of critics was great, and learning become more loquacious as it was less improving. ”

“ An author may be considered as a merciful substitute to the legislature; he acts not by punishing crimes, but preventing them; however virtuous the present age, there may be still growing employment for ridicule, or reproof, for persuasion, or satire. If the author be, therefore, still so necessary among us, let us treat him with proper consideration, as a child of the public, not a rent-charge on the community. And, indeed, a child of the public he is in all respects; for while so well able to direct others, how incapable is he frequently found of guiding himself. ”

“ Yet this honest ambition of being admired by posterity, cannot be gratified without continual efforts in the present age to deserve it. For if the rewards of genius are improperly directed; if those who are capable of supporting the honour of the times by their writings, prefer opulence to fame; if the stage should be shut to writers of merit, and open only to interest or intrigue. If such should happen to be the vile complexion of the times, the very virtues of the age will be forgotten by posterity ”

“ Premiums also, proposed for literary excellence, when given as encouragements to boys may be useful, but when designed as rewards to men, are certainly misapplied. We have seldom seen a performance of any great merit, in consequence of rewards proposed in this manner. Who has ever observed a writer of any eminence, a candidate in so precarious a contest? The man who knows the real value of his own genius, will no more venture it upon an uncertainty, than he who knows the true use of a guinea, will stake it with a sharper by throwing a main. ”

“ Men of the first eminence are often found to indulge this illiberal vein of raillery. Two contending writers often by the opposition of their wit, render their profession contemptible in the eyes of ignorants, who should have been taught to admire. Whatever the reader may think of himself, it is at least two to one, but he is a greater blockhead than the most scribling dunce he affects to despise.
The poet's poverty is a standing topic of contempt. His writing for bread is an unpardonable offence. Perhaps, of all mankind, an author, in these times, is used most hardly. ”

“ Two poets, however, in an age are not sufficient to revive the splendor of decaying genius; nor should we consider the few as the national standard, by which to characterize the many. Our measures of literary reputation must be taken rather from that numerous class of men who, placed above the vulgar, are yet beneath the great, and who confer fame on others without receiving any portion of it themselves.
In Italy, then, we shall no where find a stronger passion for art or science, yet no country making more feeble efforts to promote either. ”

“ By his means, even the philosopher, acquires popular applause, and all that are truly great the admiration of posterity. By means of polite learning alone, the patriot and the hero, the man who praiseth virtue, and he who practices it, who fights successfully for his country, or who dies in its defence, become immortal.
Let none affect to despise future fame, the actions of even the lowest part of mankind testify a desire of this kind. Wealth, titles, and several paltry advantages, are secured for posterity, who can only give their applause in return. ”