A good biography, says Carlyle, ought to show the effect of society on the individual and of the individual on society. Irving has succeeded in writing such a biography of Goldsmith. The youth in rural Ireland, the student at the university, the wanderer on the Continent, the hack-writer of Grub Street, is shown under the moulding influence of a severe and often cruel world. Then, after a long struggle, the world recognized and rewarded Goldsmith. The subtle influence of his winning style, of his quiet manner and his sympathetic nature, was quietly shaping the thought of the time; yet he held aloof from political wrangle and from party strife. All this Irving shows by illustration and enforces by argument. In style there are elements common to both author and biographer. The works of both are marked by ease and grace, by tenderness and pathos, and by a mild irony. The American author was just the person to write the life of the brilliant, lovable Irishman. Irving, who was fully appreciated while he lived, succeeded in gaining the acknowledgment of the world's indebtedness to him; Goldsmith, who craved kind words, barely won the friendship of a world that is often tardy in recognizing merit. III. IRVING'S WORKS. 1807. Salmagundi. 1809. Knickerbocker's History of New York. 1815-19. Contributions to the Analectic Magazine. 1819. The Sketch Book. 1822. Bracebridge Hall. 1824. Tales of a Traveller. 1824. American Essays (never printed). 1828. Life of Columbus. 1829. Conquest of Grenada. 1831. Voyages of the Companions of Columbus. 1832. The Alhambra. 1835. Tour on the Prairies. 1835. Crayon Miscellanies, containing Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey. 1836. Legends of the Conquest of Spain. In the study of Irving's Goldsmith, the student will find the following books of assistance: Besant's London in the Eighteenth Century. Boswell's Life of Johnson. Prior's Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Davidson's Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Dobson's Life of Goldsmith. Irving's Life and Letters of Washington Irving. PREFACE IN the course of a revised edition of my works I have come to a biographical sketch of Goldsmith, published several years since. It was written hastily, as introductory to a selection from his writings; and, though the facts contained in it were collected from various sources, I was chiefly indebted for them to the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior,1 who had collected and collated the most minute particulars of the poet's history with unwearied research and scrupulous fidelity; but had rendered them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid with details and disquisitions, and matters uninteresting to the general reader. When I was about of late to revise my biographical sketch, preparatory to republication, a volume was put into my hands, recently given to the public by Mr. John Forster,2 of the Inner Temple,3 who, 1 James Prior, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; Member of the Royal Irish Academy; author of the Life of Goldsmith, Life of Burke, etc., etc. 2 (1812-1876.) An English barrister and man of letters; biographer of Goldsmith and Dickens. 8 The London Temple was the lodge of the ancient religious order of the Knights Templars. Edward II. suppressed the order and gave the house to the Earl of Pembroke. After changing hands once or twice, it was, in 1346, leased to students of law. On the site of the ancient Temple now stand the two |