nerally possessed of collateral motives to virtue,
the vulgar should be particularly regarded, whose behaviour in civil
life is totally hinged upon their hopes and fears. Those who
constitute the basis of the great fabric of society should be
particularly regarded; for in policy, as in architecture, ruin is most
fatal when it begins from the bottom." There was, indeed, throughout
Goldsmith's miscellaneous writing much more common sense than might
have been expected from a writer who was supposed to have none.

As regards his chance criticisms on dramatic and poetical literature,
these are generally found to be incisive and just; while sometimes
they exhibit a wholesome disregard of mere tradition and authority.
"Milton's translation of Horace's Ode to Pyrrha," he says, for
example, "is universally known and generally admired, in our opinion
much above its merit." If the present writer might for a moment
venture into such an arena, he would express the honest belief that
that translation is the very worst translation that was ever made of
anything. But there is the happy rendering of _simplex munditiis_,
which counts for much.

By this time Goldsmith had also written his charming ballad of _Edwin
and Angelina_, which was privately "printed for the amusement of the
Countess of Northumberland," and which afterwards appeared in the
_Vicar of Wakefield_. It seems clear enough that this quaint and
pathetic piece was suggested by an old ballad beginning,

"Gentle heardsman, tell to me,
Of curtesy I thee pray,
Unto the towne of Walsingham
Which is the right and ready way,"

which Percy had shown to Goldsmith, and which, patched up,
subsequently appeared in the _Reliques_. But Goldsmith's ballad is
original enough to put aside all the discussion about plagiarism which
was afterwards started. In the old fragment the weeping pilgrim
receives directions from the herdsman, and goes on her way, and we
hear of her no more; in _Edwin and Angelina_ the forlorn and
despairing maiden suddenly finds herself confronted by the long-lost
lover whom she had so cruelly used. This is the dramatic touch that
reveals the hand of the artist. And here again it is curious to note
the care with which Goldsmith repeatedly revised his writings. The
ballad originally ended with these two stanzas:--

"Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove,
From lawn to woodland stray;
Blest as the songsters of the grove,
And innocen