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NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CXLVII.

APRIL, 1850.

ART. I.-The Life of Oliver Goldsmith. By WASHINGTON IRVING. New York: George P. Putnam. 1849. 12mo. pp. 382.

2. The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, including a Variety of Pieces, now first published. By JAMES PRIOR. In Four Volumes. Vols. I. & II. New York: George P. Putnam.

1850.

12mo.

It is pleasant, in these clanging days, when even our Reviews resound with the din of arms, to be recalled to a calmer sphere by such a book as that whose title graces the head of our article; to turn from Kossuth and Pio Nono, the Sikhs and the Mexicans, to Goldsmith, whose very name transports us at once into the midst of an age which seems to the readers of Boswell to have been more occupied with Dr. Johnson and the club than with any thing else. So adverse is the spirit of our time to the deification of literary heroes, that even Shakspeare has had to be brought into fashion; and it would require more than the genius of Fanny Kemble to procure an apotheosis for any name less eminent. Indeed, we feel sincerely grateful to Mr. Irving for reminding his countrymen of Goldsmith, and thus rescuing one great light, at least, from the eclipse of "illustrations" and gorgeous binding. The rising generation are in danger of considering the works of Johnson and his compeers as "books that no gentleman's library should

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be without," and which no gentleman thinks of reading; and of failing entirely to recognize in them the fountains whence came much of the inspiration of the present day. We who were brought up on Addison, his contemporaries and successors, awaken to a most unpleasant surprise, when we find these names are strange in our children's ears. As we seem to ourselves to have imbibed our knowledge of them with our mother's milk, we are quietly expecting that our successors will do the same. But we have only to examine the "reading-books" scattered broadcast among our young people, from Maine to Mexico, to discover the fallacy of any such notion. These manuals are carefully weeded of all extracts from the standards of the language, and filled only with specimens of American literature, under some delusion of patriotism; as if it were not rank treason thus to confess that we have no share in the glory of our ancestors. Whoever, therefore, calls up vividly to the public recollection a true model, must be reckoned a benefactor, and we are always happy to be obliged to Mr. Irving. He has, we think, a peculiar fitness for the present gracious task. Mr. Prior was a laborious collector of facts, who, by dint of patient research, and nothing else, made a book as little attractive as a life of Goldsmith could well be. Mr. Forster drew from the distaff thus carefully stored with raw material a smooth thread, around which he allowed all the characteristic circumstances and associations of the time to crystallize, forming a mass at once solid and transparent, but not without, now and then, a little superfluous glitter. Mr. Irving, selecting at will from the whole, has, with his usual taste, presented us with "gems in order, fitly set," from whose shifting and delicate hues flashes forth a portrait, possessing the accuracy without the hardness of the daguerreotype, though not, like that, made of sunshine.

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Why is it that the saddest books in the whole world are those which give us the lives of men of genius? Is it only that the realities of life-its imperfections, disappointments, follies, and mistakes loom out terrifically from a background of splendid possibilities? Is it the apprehension of power, with which we set out, that makes natural weaknesses seem so piteous the notion of greatness that renders littleness unpardonable? What do we expect of authors, and what ought we to expect? Why should they be less happy

than other men, and why should we imagine them to be happier? In short, what is practically the connection or opposition between genius and the common affairs of life?

Our readers will hardly be disposed to dispute the proposition, that we rise from the perusal of the biographies of men of high genius sadder as well as wiser. We feel as we do after life's hardest personal lessons. We are conscious of the same chastening effect as that produced by the ill result of some blunder or misconduct of our own. Our hearts fail us; we are discouraged as to ourselves, our past and our future. If the inspired, the far-seeing, the "god-like in faculties," succeed so ill in making their powers subserve the ends of life, with what hope can we take another step?

The deep and tender sympathy with which we study the characters and follow the fortunes of the gifted is hardly to be accounted for without tracing its origin farther back than might at first glance seem necessary. Admiration, indeed, begets a sort of enthusiasm; but it expends itself upon the thing admired, unless that be of the nature of a direct communication of the spirit of the author to our spirit. He who works well in pure abstractions may excite our intellect to the uttermost move our wonder, perhaps, and even win our gratitude in a certain sense; but we shall have no affectionate interest in him personally. If we care to know who he is, where he was born, and under what influences trained, it will be rather from curiosity than any feeling nearer the heart; more as we study a phenomenon than as we indulge in a pleasure. If our chief pursuit be consonant with his own, there will, indeed, be a superadded interest; but even this may, perhaps, be in part traceable to a secret feeling of competition, emulation, or jealousy; the head will still be the moving power, not the heart. A botanist wishes to learn the scientific name and history of a plant, which, to the observer of another class, is a source of pleasure for its beauty and the associations that hang about it; and there is quite as great a difference between the pleasure we feel in tracing out the shaping circumstances in the history of two men, one of whom has only improved our intellect, while the other has delighted our imagination and proved his sympathy with our common experience. The law of sympathy is, indeed, universal; and print and paper make little difference in the rapport. If we care to

analyze and compare our interest in different authors-in themselves as well as their works we shall find that we love best those who seem most nearly acquainted with our common, daily life, and most warmly concerned in it; those who express this sympathy and concern with the least reserve, and who count most securely on the universality of human hopes and wishes, passions and accidents. There is a secret solicitude in every breast on this subject of life; it is of the intensest importance to us—an overshadowing thought, indeed, which insensibly colors all our other thoughts, while we are fancying ourselves very philosophical about the world and its affairs. It is in vain that we seek to reduce the importance of this life, or to moderate our concern in it, by considerations connected with another; those very considerations do but add dignity to a period which is so intimately connected with an unimaginable eternity. The greater our anxiety, or the stronger our hope in the future, the more intense is, and ought to be, the interest of a healthful mind in the present, and what ever tends to unfold, disentangle, or illuminate that puzzling, but most precious, present. Writings which do this, live in every heart and forever; their fiction becomes as much a part of our stock of experience as the occurrences of yesterday, and their authors are as really our personal friends as if we had looked from time to time into their answering eyes during the whole progress of the events they describe. We are even more sure of their sympathy than we can always be of that of people into whose eyes we do look; for how many things are there that interfere between us and those about us! The limitations of merely human intercourse are mortifying and disappointing; and we turn with the keenest pleasure to an intercourse equally connected with our daily experience, and at the same time relieved from the restraint of provoking barriers of pride, jealousy, fear, disdain, and apathy. If we had full consciousness and enjoyment of the inner sense and highest meaning of things around us, we should need neither novels nor poetry. Heaven has in all ages sent among men angels of different degrees, whose office it is to give us this insight, with power not only to show us the secret beauty of life, but to endow us at the same time with new capacity of perception. The higher of these are called poets; perhaps this were a fitting name for all.

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The poet, then, the maker, the inspired of whatever rank, — is associated with our notions of life in such a sense that we consider him its exponent. We trust his pictures because, in some respects at least, they favor our beloved ideal. We are willing to believe that he has seen further into the truth of things than we; we endow him unconsciously with all insight into human springs, means, and motives, because we perceive in him an insight beyond our own. He can show us the subtlest workings of thought in others; can he ever be deceived? He discerns unerringly the consequences of every vice and every folly; - how wise and blameless must be his own walk! Compassion, in one who understands so well the nature of compassion, can never be a mere weakness; unthrift can hardly be the fault of him who has so often contrasted its curse with the blessings of regularity and self-command. Must not he who exhibits so much sagacity in one direction have the full use of it in all ? He seems to have life completely in his power; is it likely to prove too much for him practically?

It may be said we are not so romantic as this. We need not, in this age of the world, be told that poets are men like ourselves, at least as prone to error, at least as subject to passion; as weak, as variable, and even more at the mercy of the delusions of vanity. It is true, reason assures us of all this; yet to expect more of men whose works have delighted us is a natural consequence of the illusion of that delight. The light that shone about us while we were in their company was a supernatural radiance; and when we try to look at such men by the common day in which we behold others, the glamour is still hanging about our eyes. So we read their lives with a disappointment which reason disowns, but which yet does us honor. It has a generous source; it evinces a willingness that there should be some of our kind above us in fortune, as we feel them to be in power; it is the result of uncalculating gratitude for unpurchasable benefit. We would fain see them freed even from the inexorable law of cause and effect. There is something like an idea that they have earned happiness by bestowing it; and that, even if they fall into weakness, they have a claim to be invalided on full pay.

There is a consoling doubt that suggests itself sometimes,

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