in 1774, he died at the age of only forty-five, half submerged, as usual,
in foolish debts, but passionately mourned not only by his acquaintances in
the literary and social worlds, but by a great army of the poor and needy
to whom he had been a benefactor. In the face of this testimony to his
human worth his childish vanities and other weaknesses may well be
pardoned. All Goldsmith's literary work is characterized by one main
quality, a charming atmosphere of optimistic happiness which is the
expression of the best side of his own nature. The scene of all his most
important productions, very appropriately, is the country--the idealized
English country. Very much, to be sure, in all his works has to be conceded
to the spirit of romance. Both in 'The Vicar of Wakefield' and in 'She
Stoops to Conquer' characterization is mostly conventional, and events are
very arbitrarily manipulated for the sake of the effects in rather
free-and-easy disregard of all principles of motivation. But the kindly
knowledge of the main forces in human nature, the unfailing sympathy, and
the irrepressible conviction that happiness depends in the last analysis on
the individual will and character make Goldsmith's writings, especially
'The Vicar,' delightful and refreshing. All in all, however, 'The Deserted
Village' is his masterpiece, with its romantic regret, verging on tragedy
but softened away from it, and its charming type characterizations, as
incisive as those of Chaucer and Dryden, but without any of Dryden's biting
satire. In the choice of the rimed couplet for 'The Traveler' and 'The
Deserted Village' the influence of pseudo-classicism and of Johnson
appears; but Goldsmith's treatment of the form, with his variety in pauses
and his simple but fervid eloquence, make it a very different thing from
the rimed couplet of either Johnson or Pope. 'The Deserted Village,' it
should be added, is not a description of any actual village, but a
generalized picture of existing conditions. Men of wealth in England and
Ireland were enlarging their sheep pastures and their hunting grounds by
buying up land and removing villages, and Goldsmith, like Sir Thomas More,