PRIOR'S EDITION OF GOLDSMITH'S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS.
PERHAPS no collection of any single writer has been so exten- sively popular as the Miscellaneous Works of GOLDSMITH: the causes of which must be attributed to the variety, or rather to the diversity of their excellence, to the brevity of the pieces, and to the popular form into which the matter is thrown. In the Bee, the Essays, and the Citizen of the World, the reader enjoys de- scriptions of life and manners, interspersed with critical remarks, philosophical reflections, and sensible morality, continually varied and never too long to tire. In the two Comedies, if the wit is inferior to SHERIDAN'S, and the characters of the per- sons are less strong and general than in the dramas of some of GoLDsmerst's predecessors, they yet seem to combine dramatic ef- fects with literary excellence in the highest degree: the junction of the critical and popular voice has assigned to the Vicar Qf Wake- field a place in the first rank of novels, for the interest of its story, the charming simplicity of its principal characters, the changes of its fortune, and the poetical justice of its dimouernent—though it may be doubted whether, as a novel, its simplicity does not verge upon improbability and insipidity in the eyes of our deep and cautious generation,—or, at all events, whether it continues to please us in age as it pleased in youth. The poetry, from the Traveller to Retaliation, exhibits samples of elegiac, didactic, humorous, and satiric spirit, to which, strange as the opinion may seem, it would be difficult to produce a superior. But the qualities we have mentioned are peculiar merits : GOLD- SMITH has pervading excellences of a still higher kind,—a pathos which touches without melting; a humour which, whether in facetiousness or irony, accomplished the author's purpose of raising checi fulness rather than exciting boisterous laughter ; a sagacity of judgment that often carried him ahead of his age, dis- tancing both the prejudices of the vulgar and the solemn errors of the professed wise ; a felicity of manner which, in the language of JOHNSON, "adorned whatever it touched ;" a power of amusing —a magnetic virtue, that imparted interest to the most trivial subject, and rendered the driest attractive. These essential cha- racteristics have rendered him the facile princeps of authors, who make no pretensions to fire, nerve, or grandeur; and they were accompanied by the more attainable qualities of a just ful- ness of matter, and an elegance of style, whose every period was finished to faultlessness. When, however, long acquaintance with GOLDSMITH shall have enabled the critical student to penetrate him thoroughly, he will find, or we are much mistaken, that his equable and balanced style is merely a means to attain the first end of popular writing—perfect translucency. In the bands of GOLDSMITH, diction was merely a medium for conveying ideas: and hence the failure of the best of his imitators, who think only of balancing members of sentences. On a limner occasion, we obseived that Mr. Patois had left • nothing to be done by any futtne collector of materials for GOLDSMITH'S Life. He is, it appeirs to us, entitled to the same praise as regards the editing of the Miscellaneous Works. We suppose he has printed his text from the most accurate editions• be has supplied it with illustrative matter of various kinds, and
the case of the poetry, eith various readings ; he has added to it several pieces that have not hitherto been comprised in the Misceb lanies ; and rescued many, that had been published anonymously, from the pages of periodicals, and from introductions to forgottea books, or forgotten editions. Having done so much, entitling
him to the praise of unwearied industry, there was the less oc- casion for insinuating, as he does in his notes, that the Captivity and time Threnodia Aueustalis are now published for the first time ; since the Captivity appeared in 1820, and the Threnodia was inserted by CHALMERS in his edition of the English Poets. It will be seen that the distinguishing merit of this edition is its completeness. The greater part of the really new matter con- sists of fugitive pieces—prefaces and reviews ; the prefaces hav- ing of necessity but a limited interest at any time; the reviews being notices of books that were trivial in themselves and temporary in their nature. They are therefore more curious than popular—more attractive to men of letters than general readers, although the latter will take some interest in the severely just estimate of HOME'S" Douglas," and the criticisms on SmoLtarit " England" and VOLTAIRE'S " Universal History." The man of letters will be pleased with all for the elegance, justness, and breadth of the introductions to many, the complete idea of the scope and character of the book reviewed conveyed by several, and the good-nature which invariably tempers the sternest con- demnation. The critic will observe that in a few, as in "Douglas" and the " Orphan of China," the reader must be acquainted with the work, fully to understand the remarks upon it ; which, though admissible in a criticism, is a defect in a ‘■ review ;" whilst every body will be delighted with CHARLEVOIX'S "History of Para- guay." This, indeed, is the gem of the new matter, and is per- haps the best review that ever was written. The composition is in GOLDSMITH'S happiest style ; it combines his peculiar power of instructing and amusing ; it takes the pith out of' a bad book with some good matter in it ; it conveys a lively idea of a credu- lous, twaddling, travelling (and therefore proverbially lying) Jesuit, without being tainted by any of the qualities it touches off; and, crowning triumph ! it makes a delightful and informing article out of a very dull work. In a prelusive notice of Mr. PRIOR'S Life of Golflsmith, with allusions to the work under review, the Quarterly made a sad lamentation over the youth of the present day for their igno- rance of our standard authors, and of GOLDSMITH in par- ticular. Considering that his works are published in every possible variety of form, size, style, and price, and that a very cheap and excellent edition of his Miscellanies appeared within these four years, and, if not exhausted, is rarely met with, we think the assertion should have been distinctly limited to the Quarterly's more immediate acquaintance our aristocratic youth— those whom the upper classes think " well-educated young men" —your public schools and university people, of "small Latin and less Greek." Judging from time fashion and price of these volumes, they are intended exclusively for the exclusives. The publisher of BYRON ought to be able to read the signs of the times in his own trade, but we should have thought the people the surer game.
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