is as a writer of essays that
on Goldsmith falls the light of pure pre-eminence. Some hold Charles
Lamb supreme amongst the essayists, and others Goldsmith, The last men
who would ever have fought for the vanity of recognised supremacy
would have been these two gentle rival claimants for the crown. There
is a peculiar felicity in much of the writing of Laurence Sterne. His
demerits preclude him from a sacred place. It is strange how rare
grace is in every sphere of art. In that of gracious writing, Oliver
Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, and Nathaniel Hawthorne are alone in pure and
isolated splendour. We speak of grace, and not here of power of mind
or informative force. How greatly Froude and Emerson would be enhanced
gifted with graciousness. Goldsmith, even in his own day, was
acknowledged the best of the essay writers. This is the realm in which
he was, and is to this day, king. From his love of poetry and
happiness in his art, and that shining in the power of deft and
delightful expression, there is another sphere in which it would be
expected that his power would prevail, but in which he had either no
actual talent or very little. However we may admire _The Haunch of
Venison_ and other stray pieces, Goldsmith was really not a writer of
what is now called "Society verse." In that delightful sphere Austin
Dobson has no rival. In the higher realms of poetry there are many who
will regret that necessity forced Goldsmith to turn almost exclusively
to prose. Poetry loves genius, and starves it; whilst prose, hating,
feeds and clothes its child. Clearly genius, so much at ease in the
essay, would prosper in the poem. No one can imagine when men will
live and not love Gray's "Elegy"; and if this be so, then for as long,
at least, there will be a place within the heart for Goldsmith's
_Deserted Village_. Of _The Traveller_, Dr. Johnson said: "There has
not been so fine a poem since Pope's time." This may seem poor praise.
It was not so at that time; Pope reigned supreme, and was esteemed by
Johnson at home, and Voltaire abroad, as pre-eminent. Worshipping
admirers held Pope and Dryden very gods. Dryden and Pope have passed
away more easily than Gray and Goldsmith will. In Dryden, Pope, and
Johnson himself we have mere imitators of Latinity. They have no style
or fashion that can be wholly held their own, and without Virgil,
Juvenal, Horace, and Ovid they could not have spoken. Goldsmith
strikes a purer strain, and one peculiarly