Goldsmith's stature was below the middle height; his limbs, sturdy; his forehead, more prominent than is usual; and his face, almost round, pallid, and marked with the small-pox.
The simpleness, almost approaching to fatuity, of his outward deportment, combined with the power which there was within, brings to our recollection some part of the character of La Fontaine, whom a French lady wittily called the Fable Tree, from his apparent unconsciousness, or rather want of mental responsibility for the admirable productions which he was continually supplying. His propriety and clearness, when he expresses his thoughts with his pen, and his confusion and inability to impart them in conversation, well illustrated the observation of Cicero, that it is very possible for a man to think rightly on any subject, and yet to want the power of conveying his sentiments by speech in fit and becoming language to others. "Fieri potest ut recte quis sentiat, sed id quod sentit polite eloqui non possit." Yet Mr. Cumberland, who was one of his associates, has informed us, "that he had gleams of eloquence."
Johnson said of him that he was not a social man; he never exchanged mind with you. His prevailing foible was a desire of shining in those exterior accomplishments which nature had denied him. Vanity and benevolence had conspired to make him an easy prey to adulation and imposture.
His complaints of the envy by which he found his mind tormented, and especially on the occasion of Johnson's being honoured by an interview with the king, must have made those who heard him, lose all sense of the evil passion, in their amusement at a confession so novel and so pleasant.
One day, we are told, he complained in a mixed company of Lord Camden. "I met him," said he, "at Lord Clare's house in the country, and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man." The story of his peach-coloured coat will not soon be forgotten. If—
—in some men Their graces serve them but as enemies,
Goldsmith was one of those in whom their, frailties are more likely to serve them as friends; for they were such as could scarcely fail to assist in appeasing malevolence and conciliating kindness. Be this as it will, he must, with all his weaknesses, be considered as one of the chief ornaments of the age in which he lived.
Comparisons have been made between the situation of the men eminent for literature in Queen Anne's time and at the commencement of the reign of George the Third. In the former, beginning to be disengaged from the court, where they were more at home during the reign of the Charleses, they were falling under the influence of the nobility, amongst whom they generally found their patrons, and often their associates. In the latter, they had been insensibly shaken off alike by the court and the nobles, and were come into the hands of the people and the booksellers. I know not whether they were much the worse for this change. If in the one instance they were rendered more studious of elegance and smartness; in the other, they attained more freedom and force. In the former, they were oftener imitators of the French. In the latter, they followed the dictates of a better sense, and trusted more to their own resources. They lost, indeed, the character of wits, but they aspired to that of instructors. Yet in one respect, and that a material one, it must be owned, that they were sufferers by this alteration in affairs. For the quantity of their labours having become more important under their new masters than it was under their old ones, they had less care of selection, and their originality was weakened by diffusiveness. They indulged themselves but sparingly in the luxury of composing verse, which was too thriftless an occupation to be continued long. They used it, perhaps, as the means of attracting notice to themselves at their first entrance on the world, but not as the staple on which they were afterwards to depend. When the song had drawn a band of hearers around them, it had done its duty. The crowd was to be detained and increased, by expectations of advantage rather than of pleasure. A writer consulted Goldsmith on what subjects he might employ his pen with most profit to himself. "It will be better," said the author of The Traveller and the Deserted Village, laughing indeed, but in good earnest, "to relinquish the draggle-tail muses. For my part, I have found productions in prose more sought after and better paid for." This is, no doubt, the reason that his verse bears so small a proportion to his other writings. Yet it is by the former, added to the few works of imagination which he has left besides, that he will be known to posterity. His histories will probably be superseded by more skilful or more accurate compilations; as they are now read by few who can obtain information nearer to its original sources.
In the natural manner of telling a short and humorous story, he is perhaps surpassed by no writer of prose except Addison. In his Essays, the style preserves a middle way between the gravity of Johnson and the lightness of Chesterfield; but it may often be objected to them, as to the moral writings of Johnson, that they present life to us under a gloomy aspect, and leave an impression of despondence on the mind of the reader.
In his poetry there is nothing ideal. It pleases chiefly by an exhibition of nature in her most homely and familiar views. But from these he selects his objects with due discretion, and omits to represent whatever would occasion unmingled pain or disgust.