literary style may be as true and earnest and inspiring as a
very pretty woman. It teaches as it smiles. On everything Goldsmith
ever cast a fairer and more hallowed light. The very inmost essence of
his genius was purity in its compassionate perfection. It must,
indeed, have been difficult under the conditions of distress amidst
which almost throughout his whole life he wrote, for him to preserve
an ease of style, and with the ease a dignity. Yet through all, not
even once he faltered. He never failed. Following Fielding's happy
epigram--if it ought not to be rather called most unhappy--in these
days the lot of a literary man who was a hackney writer was hardly
better, nay, scarce as good, as the lot of a hackney coachman. Yet
even in those writings which must have been rushed off most rapidly,
and amidst the fires of scorching distress, Goldsmith maintained his
grace of style, and did not forget the reverence due to writing and
the honour of literature. Without any trace or taint of
self-consciousness or self-conceit, he held the pen a sacred trust. As
a critic Goldsmith had a high ideal, and more than this. And, what is
finer, an entirely new conception. No poet could read his criticism of
Gray and not feel inspired. No one could peruse the article and not
feel that henceforth poetry was something more to him and to all life
than it had ever been before. Criticism is itself among the evolving
sciences. Depreciation was rife. Goldsmith touched a new chord in
inspiring and chastening appreciation, a spirit which even now, more
and more, in life and letters, men must realize. Unlike Brougham,
Goldsmith could chide without unkindness, and prove severe without
proving cruel. He threw such a light of love on merit that could and
did soften and condone the deserved censure of the strictures that not
envy, but mercy, made him utter. Criticism in its true sense was
hardly known. In enlarging the message of poetry, the motive of the
drama and the functions of fiction, Goldsmith fulfilled the
responsibilities of higher criticism, and that power of inspiration
and heightening of expression and perceptivity which are its first
duty and its highest honour. Whilst in the elevation of criticism and
the higher interpretation of poetry much is due to the inspiring
guidance of Gray, a great deal, and more than is commonly admitted, is
due to Goldsmith. If he did not force, he influenced the splendid
expansion of spiritual perception. It