n this field has lasted practically until the present
day. That his histories have been superseded is due far more to
changes in attitude and criticism and the revolutionary results of
modern research than to intrinsic failures in the works themselves.
They still stand monuments in pure English and models in patriotic
perception, the due balance between the general and the particular,
and also in vividness, compression, and an unfailing clearness, both
in sound views, and also in their unfailing explicit expression.
Whilst it has appeared the unhappy destiny of this author to have been
at times too lightly regarded, high praise has almost always been
accorded to his labours.

Sir Walter Scott writes: "The wreath of Goldsmith is unsullied; he
wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice; and he accomplished his task in
a manner that raises him to the highest rank among British authors. We
close his volumes with a sigh that such an author should have written
so little from the stores of his own genius, and that he should have
been so prematurely removed from the sphere of literature which he
adorned." Johnson writes: "The Life of Dr. Parnell is a task which I
should very willingly decline, since it has been lately written by
Goldsmith--a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of
performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing.
What such an author has told, who would wish to tell again?" The same
generous soul exclaimed: "Is there a man, sir, now, who can pen an
essay with such ease and elegance as Goldsmith?" All can see how true
this is when they compare Goldsmith's style with that of his
contemporaries--that hostile essay, for example, published from
Richardson's firm, in which, time after time, sneers must cease and
praise prevail, despite the intention to decry. If reluctant laudation
is most sincere, then Boswell himself said of Goldsmith that there was
nothing that he touched that he did not adorn. Goldsmith adorned, but
not with mere polish or veneer. He threw a curious felicity on things,
and made them fair. The very beauty of his touch allures us to take
his work too lightly. If his essays had been in his own time
translated into pompous terms, he could have passed for a sage. As
convention makes religion something of which little children grow
afraid, so older minds think beauty must be frivolous, and that moral
worth must live in rapt association with outward ugliness. A most
graceful