His Poems.—In 1764 he published The Traveller, a moralizing poem upon the condition of the people under the European governments. It was at once and entirely successful; philosophical, elegant, and harmonious, it is pitched in a key suited to the capacity of the world at large; and as, in the general comparison of nations, he found abundant reason for lauding England, it was esteemed patriotic, and was on that account popular. Many of its lines have been constantly quoted since.
In 1770 appeared his Deserted Village, which was even more popular than The Traveller; nor has this popularity flagged from that time down to the present day. It is full of exquisite pictures of rural life and manners. It is what it claims to be,—not an attempt at high art or epic, but a gallery of cabinet pictures of rare finish and detail, painted by the poet's heart and appealing to the sensibility of every reader. The world knows it by heart,—the portraiture of the village schoolmaster and his school; the beautiful picture of the country parson:
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
This latter is a worthy companion-piece to Chaucer's "poor persoune," and is, besides, a filial tribute to Goldsmith's father. So real are the characters and scenes, that the poem has been a popular subject for the artist. If in The Traveller he has been philosophical and didactic, in the Deserted Village he is only descriptive and tender. In no work is there a finer spirit of true charity, the love of man for God's sake,—like God himself, "no respecter of persons."
While in form and versification he is like Pope and the Artificial School, he has the sensibility to nature of Thomson, and the simplicity of feeling and thought of Wordsworth; and thus he stands between the two great poetic periods, partaking of the better nature of both.
The Vicar of Wakefield.—Between the appearance of these two poems, in 1766, came forth that nonpareil of charming stories, The Vicar of Wakefield. It is so well known that we need not enter into an analysis of it. It is the story of a good vicar, of like passions with ourselves; not wanting in vanity and impetuosity, but shining in his Christian virtue like a star in the midst of accumulating misfortunes,—a man of immaculate honor and undying faith, preaching to his fellow-prisoners in the jail, surveying death without fear, and at last, like Job, restored to happiness, and yet maintaining his humility. It does not seem to have been constructed according to artificial rules, but rather to have been told extemporaneously, without effort and without ambition; and while this very fact has been the cause of some artistic faults and some improbabilities, it has also given it a peculiar charm, by contrast with such purely artificial constructions as the Rasselas of Johnson.
So doubtful was the publisher, who had bought the manuscript for £60, that he held it back for two years, until the name of the author had become known through The Traveller, and was thus a guarantee for its success. The Vicar of Wakefield has also an additional value in its delineation of manners, persons, and conditions in that day, and in its strictures upon the English penal law, in such terms and with such suggestions as seem a prophecy of the changes which have since taken place.
Histories, and Other Works.—Of Goldsmith's various histories it may be said that they are of value for the clear, if superficial, presentation of facts, and for their charm of style.
The best is, without doubt, The History of England; but the Histories of Greece and Rome, re-edited, are still used as text-books in many schools. The Vicar has been translated into most of the modern languages, and imitated by many writers since.
As an essayist, Goldsmith has been a great enricher of English history. His Chinese letters—for the idea of which he was indebted to the Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu—describe England in his day with the same vraisemblance which we have noticed in The Spectator. These were afterwards collected and published in a volume entitled The Citizen of the World. And besides the pleasure of biography, and the humor of the presentment, his Life of Beau Nash introduces us to Bath and its frequenters with historical power. The life at the Spring is one and a very valuable phase of English society.