*

the most bungling workman is able to execute; to select such parts as contribute to delight, is reserved only for those whom accident has blessed with uncommon talents, or such as have read the ancients with indefatigable industry. Parnell is ever happy in the selection of his images and scrupulously careful in the choice of his subjects. His productions bear no resemblance to those tawdry things which it has been for some time the fashion to admire; in writing which the poet sits down without any plan, and heaps up splendid images without any selection; where the reader grows dizzy with praise and admiration, and yet soon grows weary he can scarcely tell why. It is indeed amazing, after what has been done by Dryden, Addison, and Pope, to improve and harmonise our native tongue, that their successors should have taken so much pains to involve it into pristine barbarity. These misguided innovators have not been content with restoring antiquated words and phrases, but have indulged themselves in the most licentious transpositions and the harshest constructions, vainly imagining, that the more their writings are unlike prose, the more they resemble poetry. They have adopted a language of their own and call upon mankind for admiration. All those who do not understand them are silent, and those who make out their meaning are willing to praise, to show they understand. From these follies and affectations

the poems of Parnell are free; he has considered the language of poetry as the language of life, and conveys the warmest thoughts in the simplest expression."

Here, at a time when his judgment was matured, we find laid down the principles which in practice he so successfully carried into effect, and which form the great secret of his popularity. We see an utter rejection of all affectation; the use of the language of life which is not necessarily either vulgar or prosaic; and combined with these a warmth and simplicity that although constituting the chief charm of good writing, frequently passes unobserved by inattentive readers, because it wants show and glitter, has nothing to strike forcibly or take by surprise, and where the perfection of art is exhibited in leaving behind no trace of the labours employed by the writer. Upon principle therefore he carefully abstained from pursuing the path, or participating in what were considered the faults, of Gray; faults of ambition, perhaps a lawful ambition; faults certainly nearly akin to beauties, were not the labour used by the artist too obvious to escape the notice of the reader. To him, to Mason, Warton, and their imitators, his remarks were considered to apply, and they did not pass without notice and censure. With Gray more particularly, he was then and since brought into competition, and the honest expression of his poetical taste has been attributed to the passion of envy. But there seems no just cause for such imputation. On the con

trary he had a high opinion of that poet, but occasionally felt bound to withhold the meed of applause less from his genius than from the manner in which it was exerted. Nor was this a recent opinion, advanced when his own poems differing so much in character had received nearly universal approbation and when a degree of rivalry might be supposed to influence his decision, but at the earliest period of his literary career, long before he was known, before he had any reputation to lose by comparison, and before he knew or could be influenced by the critical opinions of Johnson. Of this we have sufficient proof. When engaged in 1757 in the Monthly Review, he wrote the criticism in that journal on the Bard and Progress of Poetry; and there as an anonymous reviewer, had there existed hostile feelings to gratify they might have been safely indulged, even with the countenance of a large body of literary men who were less disposed then than subsequently, to admit the merits of Gray.* But we find the same spirit in this notice as in the remarks in 1770; he objects to their elaborate character, to their approval being confined to a few, to their obscurities and abruptnesses, and emphatically advises him to aim at being more popular, or in other words to study the people. A complimentary notice of the Odes

* The ridicule attempted to be cast upon him by Colman and other wits of the day in "Odes to Obscurity and Oblivion" will not be forgotten by the literary reader.

is thus introduced; nor will even warm admirers of the lyric bard deny that there is not much truth in the criticism:

"As this publication seems designed for those who have formed their taste by the models of antiquity, the generality of readers cannot be supposed adequate judges of its merits; nor will the poet it is presumed, be greatly disappointed if he finds them backward in commending a performance not exactly suited to their apprehensions. We cannot however without some regret behold those talents so capable of giving pleasure to all, exerted in efforts that at best can amuse only the few; we cannot behold this rising poet seeking fame among the learned, without hinting to him the same advice that Isocrates used to give his scholars, study the people. This study it is that has conducted the great masters of antiquity up to immortality. Pindar himself, of whom our modern lyrist is an imitator, appears entirely guided by it."*

*

one

"It is by no means our design to detract from the merit of our author's present attempt; we would only intimate that an English poet whom the muse has marked for her own+-could produce a more luxuriant bloom of flowers by cultivating such as are natives of the soil than by en

* Mr. Southey, in his Life of Cowper, quotes this passage: he was not aware, and indeed the fact is now for the first time disclosed, that Goldsmith was the writer.

+ In italics in the Review.

deavouring to force the exotics of another climate; or to speak without a metaphor, such a genius as Mr. Gray might give greater pleasure and acquire a larger portion of fame, if, instead of being an imitator, he did justice to his talents and ventured to be more an original. These two odes, it must be confessed, breathe much of the spirit of Pindar, but then they have caught the seeming obscurity, the sudden transition, and hazardous epithet, of his mighty master.” *

Of the inattention paid to the literary history of Goldsmith we have proof in the erroneous dates assigned to nearly all his principal pieces, and this poem among the number. Bishop Percy, Malone in a note to Boswell's Johnson, and all the memoir writers give the date 1765, though the publication took place in the middle of December 1764, the error arising no doubt from 1765 being printed in the titlepage, the commencement of that year being at hand. The first announcement appears in the Public Advertiser, the 19th of that month; in the St. James's Chronicle on the 21st; and was repeated in others: it came out in the quarto form, and was the first production to which he put his name—“This day is published, price one shilling and sixpence: The Traveller; or a Prospect of Society, a Poem. By Oliver Goldsmith, M.B. Printed for J. Newbery in St. Paul's Church Yard."

A feeling worthy of all praise produced the de

Monthly Review, September, 1757. See Works, vol. iv.