While Goldsmith was writing the "Deserted Village," and "She Stoops to Conquer," he was employed on works of a very different kind, works from which he derived little reputation but much profit.He compiled for the use of schools a "History of Rome,"by which he made 300 pounds, a "History of England," by which he made 600 pounds, a "History of Greece," for which he received 250pounds, a "Natural History," for which the booksellers covenanted to pay him 800 guineas.These works he produced without any elaborate research, by merely selecting, abridging, and translating into his own clear, pure, and flowing language what he found in books well-known to the world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls.He committed some strange blunders; for he knew nothing with accuracy.Thus in his "History of England,"he tells us that Naseby is in Yorkshire; nor did he correct this mistake when the book was reprinted.He was very nearly hoaxed into putting into the "History of Greece" an account of the battle between Alexander the Great and Montezuma.In his "Animated Nature" he relates, with faith and with perfect gravity, all the most absurd lies which he could find in books of travels about gigantic Patagonians, monkeys that preach sermons, nightingales that repeat long conversations."If he can tell a horse from a cow," said Johnson, "that is the extent of his knowledge of zoology." How little Goldsmith was qualified to write about the physical sciences is sufficiently proved by two anecdotes.He on one occasion denied that the sun is longer in the northern than in the southern signs.It was vain to cite the authority of Maupertuis."Maupertuis!" he cried, "I understand those matters better than Maupertuis." On another occasion he, in defiance of the evidence of his own senses, maintained obstinately, and even angrily, that he chewed his dinner by moving his upper jaw.
Yet, ignorant as Goldsmith was, few writers have done more to make the first steps in the laborious road to knowledge easy and pleasant.His compilations are widely distinguished from the compilations of ordinary book-makers.He was a great, perhaps an unequalled, master of the arts of selection and condensation.In these respects his histories of Rome and of England, and still more his own abridgements of these histories, well deserve to be studied.In general nothing is less attractive than an epitome:
but the epitomes of Goldsmith, even when most concise, are always amusing; and to read them is considered by intelligent children, not as a task, but as a pleasure.
Goldsmith might now be considered as a prosperous man.He had the means of living in comfort, and even in what to one who had so often slept in barns and on bulks must have been luxury.His fame was great and was constantly rising.He lived in what was intellectually far the best society of the kingdom, in a society in which no talent or accomplishment was wanting, and in which the art of conversation was cultivated with splendid success.
There probably were never four talkers more admirable in four different ways than Johnson, Burke, Beauclerk, and Garrick; and Goldsmith was on terms of intimacy with all the four.He aspired to share in their colloquial renown; but never was ambition more unfortunate.It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle.But on this point the evidence is overwhelming.So extraordinary was the contrast between Goldsmith's published works and the silly things which he said, that Horace Walpole described him as an inspired idiot."Noll," said Garrick, "wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll." Chamier declared that it was a hard exercise of faith to believe that so foolish a chatterer could have really written the "Traveller." Even Boswell could say, with contemptuous compassion, that he liked very well to hear honest Goldsmith run on."Yes, sir," said Johnson, "but he should not like to hear himself." Minds differ as rivers differ.There are transparent and sparkling rivers from which it is delightful to drink as they flow; to such rivers the minds of such men as Burke and Johnson may be compared.But there are rivers of which the water when first drawn is turbid and noisome, but becomes pellucid as crystal, and delicious to the taste, if it be suffered to stand till it has deposited a sediment; and such a river is a type of the mind of Goldsmith.
His first thoughts on every subject were confused even to absurdity; but they required only a little time to work themselves clear.When he wrote they had that time; and therefore his readers pronounced him a man of genius: but when he talked he talked nonsense, and made himself the laughing-stock of his hearers.He was painfully sensible of his inferiority in conversation; he felt every failure keenly; yet he had not sufficient judgment and self-command to hold his tongue.His animal spirits and vanity were always impelling him to try to do the one thing which he could not do.After every attempt he felt that he had exposed himself, and writhed with shame and vexation;yet the next moment he began again.