Histories
of Greece and Rome_, re-edited, are still used as text-books in many
schools. The _Vicar_ has been translated into most of the modern
languages, and imitated by many writers since.

As an essayist, Goldsmith has been a great enricher of English history.
His Chinese letters--for the idea of which he was indebted to the _Lettres
Persanes_ of Montesquieu--describe England in his day with the same
_vraisemblance_ which we have noticed in _The Spectator_. These were
afterwards collected and published in a volume entitled _The Citizen of
the World_. And besides the pleasure of biography, and the humor of the
presentment, his _Life of Beau Nash_ introduces us to Bath and its
frequenters with historical power. The life at the Spring is one and a
very valuable phase of English society.

As a dramatist, he was more than equalled by Sheridan; but his two plays,
_The Good-Natured Man_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_, are still favorites
upon the stage.

The irregularities of Goldsmith's private life seem to have been rather
defects in his character than intentional wrong-doings. Generous to a
fault, squandering without thought what was due to his creditors, losing
at play, he lived in continual pecuniary embarrassment, and died unhappy,
with a debt of L1000, the existence of which led Johnson to ejaculate,
"Was ever poet so trusted before?" He lived a bachelor; and the conclusion
seems forced upon us that had he married a woman who could have controlled
him, he, would have been a happier and more respectable man, but perhaps
have done less for literature than he did.

While Goldsmith was a type and presenter of his age, and while he took no
high flights in the intellectual realms, he so handled what the age
presented that he must be allowed the claim of originality, both in his
poems and in the _Vicar_; and he has had, even to the present day, hosts
of imitators. Poems on college gala-days were for a long time faint
reflections of his _Traveller_, and simple, causal stories of quiet life
are the teeming progeny of the _Vicar_, in spite of the Whistonian
controversy, and the epitaph of his living wife.

A few of his ballads and songs display great lyric power, but the most of
his poetry is not lyric; it is rather a blending of the pastoral and epic
with rare success. His minor poems are few, but favorites. Among these is
the beautiful ballad entitled _Edwin and Angelina_, or _The Hermit_, which
first appeared in _The Vica