' But though it cannot justly be ascribed to any reaction
from want to sufficiency, it can still less be supposed to have been
diminished by that change. If he was careless of money, it must also be
remembered that he gave much of it away; and fortune lingers little with
those whose ears are always open to a plausible tale of distress. Of his
sensibility and genuine kindheartedness there is no doubt. And it is
well to remember that most of the tales to his disadvantage come, not
from his more distinguished companions, but from such admitted
detractors as Hawkins and Boswell. It could be no mean individuality
that acquired the esteem, and deserved the regret, of Johnson and
Reynolds.
In an edition of Goldsmith's poems, any extended examination of his
remaining productions would be out of place. Moreover, the bulk of these
is considerably reduced when all that may properly be classed as
hack-work has been withdrawn. The histories of Greece, of Rome, and of
England; the 'Animated Nature'; the lives of Nash, Voltaire, Parnell,
and Bolingbroke, are merely compilations, only raised to the highest
level in that line because they proceeded from a man whose gift of clear
and easy exposition lent a charm to everything he touched.
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