Goldsmith

Author was Black also produced the volume Goldsmith (1878) for Morley's English Men of Letters series. Innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream of life is wisdom. So wrote Oliver Goldsmith; and surely among those who have earned the world's gratitude by this ministration he must be accorded a conspicuous place. If, in these delightful writings of his, he mostly avoids the darker problems of existence--if the mystery of the tragic and apparently unmerited and unrequited suffering in the world is rarely touched upon--we can pardon the omission for the sake of the gentle optimism that would rather look on the kindly side of life. a very dark picture might be drawn of Goldsmith's life; and the sufferings that he undoubtedly endured have been made a whip with which to lash the ingratitude of a world not too quick to recognise the claims of genius. Here at once our interest in the story begins: is this Lissoy the sweet Auburn that we have known and loved since our childhood?