The Works of Oliver Goldsmith, Vol. 2 of 5 (Classic Reprint): A New Edition, Containing Pieces Hitherto Uncollected, and a Life of the Author: A New ... and a Life of the Author (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from The Works of Oliver Goldsmith, Vol. 2 of 5: A New Edition, Containing Pieces Hitherto Uncollected, and a Life of the Author

Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it 18 still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests and iambics, alliterative care and hap y negligence Every absurdity has now a champion to e fend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say for error is ever talkative.

But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous, - I mean party. Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in what contri butes to increase the distemper. Like the tiger, that sel dom desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his a petite with calumny, makes ever after the most agree aele feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers gene rally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet his tawdry' lampoons are called satires; his turbulence is said to be force, and his frenzy fire.

What reception a poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell.

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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Works of Oliver Goldsmith, Vol. 2 of 5: A New Edition, Containing Pieces Hitherto Uncollected, and a Life of the Author

Dear Sir, - I am sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a Dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands, that it is addressed to a man who, despising fame and for tune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a-year.

I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you have left the field of ambition, where the labourers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition what from the re-finement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.