The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-13 00:00:00

LI

A Lovely Illustrated Goldsmith.
The Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Illustrated. With
Introductions, Notes, and Biography by John
Francis Waller, LLD. One Vol. Pp. 369.
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.
The enterprising firm across whose counters this
exquisite volume has recently been issued—a volum e
on the outside of it regally arrayed in purple and
gold, and within filled, from cover to cover, with
a profusion of fanciful engrav:ngs scattered through
nearly four hundred pages of large and handsome
letterpress—the firm, of whose enterprise, this
" Dlastrated Goldsmith" is the latest attestation,
are honoura'oly known for the most part as a house
occupying a very conspicuous place among the
ranks of our cheap publishers. The Messrs.
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin are, in fact, nearly,
if not entirely known, as cheap publishers.
Time and again, however, in the midst of the
multitude of their wonderfully cheap serial publi-
cations, they—as in the present instance—demon.
strata visibly how perfectly Iracticable it is to corn,
bine cheapness in a serial fo:m with splendour in
that serial form when completed. A few months back
they indicated this very strikingly to the apprehen.
sion of the general public by issuing from the press
in its completed form an Illustrated Edition of
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," such as might
have vied but a very years back with the very cost-
liest works of the kind anywhere published. If we
remember rightly, too, in that very instance, the
publishing price of the volume, as in the present
instance, was no more than exactly one half-guinea!
Yet, in some respects, the half-guinea "Goldsmith
Illustrated," now before us, is far and away a more
remarkable achievement of the kind than the illus-
trated edition of the " The Pilgrim's Progress" just
referred to. And for this reason simply, that,
whereas " The Pilgrim's Progress" was a single
masterpiece, the book now under notice comprises
a collection of masterpieces. Here, in effect, in this
"Illustrated Goldsmith" we have the very choicest
masterpieces of one of the most charming and be-
loved writers in the whole wide range of our Eng-
lish Literature. Not one masterpiece, as in the
Tinker's Dream of a Religious Allegory, but,

let us repeat it, a whole throng or cluster
of equally renowned masterpieces. And how the
contents of this beautiful volume serve to illustrate
—apart from the woodcut embellishments, by their
very variety—the scope and diversity of the writer's
delightful genius 1 Here—adopting and re adapting
David Garrick's seriocomic suggestion of an epitaph
for Oliver Goldsmith's tomb—here, in Goldsmith's
collected works, in his Plays, his Poems, his radiant,
riant Comedies, his charming, melodious idyllic
Poems, his inimitable vers de societe, and his be-
witching domestic story of the Vicar of Wakefield
—here, in his oAlected writings lives and breathes
again from the pictured pages—whom ? " Oliver
Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll," who in very
deed and truth, as Garrick said of him, " wrote
like an angel,"—what though, by word of
mouth, he may have, as Garrick said, and as even
Boswell evidently thought of him—" talked like
poor Poll." The combination in Goldsmith of this
feeble prattle and exquisite writing, is in its way a
phenomenon without any parallel. We read of
him bewildered—we read him, Goldsmith himself,
delighted And our delight in reading him is ever
fresh and ever new. We should find it difficult to
count up the number of times we have already gone
through his " Vicar of Wakefield." And, certainly,
we should hardly like to think that the pleasure of
one yet further reperusal of it may never again be
experienced. Who can tire of his inimitable poetical
eux d'esprit t " The Haunch of Venison !"—or
" Retaliation !"—or the " Elegy on Mrs. Mary
Blaize !" It he introduces quite casually in his
longest prose narrative (the immortal " Vicar") a
romantic love ballad—it turns out to be one of the
loveliest love ballads ever written—to wit, " Turn
Gentle Hermit of the Dale." If he indulges inci
dentally in the same way, in the same masterpiece,
in the penning of a little apologue—it proves by
a delightful necessity to be a very apologue of
apologues, in the shape of that notable
story about the Giant and the Dwarf mak-
ing a compact to fight together side by side—
the Dwarf, as a matter of course, getting all the
kicks, and the Giant, equally as a matter of
course, getting all the halfpence, or what
may be considered as equivalent to them.
Then the two charming, charming poems—" The
Traveller" and "The Deserted Village !" And the
two radiant, sparkling comedies—" The Good-
Natured Man" and " She Stoops to Conquer !"
The latter, one of those happy hits of
authorship assuring to the playwright—
not a life -in - death sort of an exist-
ence upon the book-shelves, as the works of an
author to be read, but a visible, tangible, living,
and breathing existence, as one may say, in the
glare of the footlights, as the recognised and ad-
mitted masterpiece of an Acting Dramatist. Such
a happy-go-lucky hit, in its way, as in our
days Sir Bulwer Lytton has made for his
many-Bided fame by the productlon of his
lovely romantic drama of " The Lady of
Lyons." Pauline Deschappelles and Kate
Hardcastle "holding their own" as tenaciously, if
not as triumpantly, now, year after year, as upon
their first season, respectively, when the one in the
eighteenth, the other in the nineteenth century,
they may be said to have " come out" and to have
become thereupon, each in turn, the rage of the
town for ever afterwards. Talk of the fashionable
enameller whose skill (trumpeted by e dyer t isem en t )
promises to render fair young cheeks " Beau•
tiful for Ever !" What are the cos-
metics of Madame Rachel, wo ehould like to
ask (even if giving credence to all that is blown to
us by the tin trumpet aforesaid) what are all her
mysterious oriental washes and aromatic pearl-
powders—to a few touches imparted by the hand of
genius, the hand here of Goldsmith, there of Bulwer,
touches rendering in very truth "Beautiful For Ever"
Kate Hardoastle and Pauline Deschapelles! But
here in the lovely volume under notice—leading off
these Poems, jeux d' esprit, comedies—here, in the full
integrity of its two-and-thirty chapters—the immor-
tal story of " The Vicar of Wakefield Altogether,
it must assuredly be allowed that in the choice here
made—of the Author, first of all, and afterwards of
his works—has been one in its way eminently j udi-
cious. That Goldsmith's works, and these two
works of his in particular, are just the very things
to be illustrated—well, ecce az:plum! And, to
ensure to us our having everything faily in keeping,
one of the most accomplished and vivacious Irish
writers now living—namely, the Vice-President of
the Royal Irish Academy, Dr John Francis -Waller,
better known to the readers of The Dublin Uni-
versity Magazine by his comical psuedonym as
Jonathan Freke Slingsby—no less suitable a bio•
grapher and annotator than Dr. Waller, has
been selected by the publishers to preside over this
radiant edition of Dr. Oliver Goldsmith, to write his
Life (charmingly) to write the explanatory notes, to
write the graceful introduction. Among the many
choice editions of Goldsmith that have at different
times been published, the present one assumes its place
at once as among the very choicest. It chanced by
ill-luck, during the periodical issue of the work as
a cheap monthly serial, that one or two numbers of
it, containing the very feeblest of the illustrations,
(for among so many embellishments the merit very
materially varies) fell by chance under onr obser-
vations. Insomuch that those one or two unpropi-
tious glances had in a manner prejudiced us against
the present edition of Goldsmith's works, as one
to our thinking, of a really disappointing and un-
satisfactory character. Now, however, that the
book comes substantially before us in its completed
form, the unfavourable impression produced by
those incidental glances at it, during its piecemeal
issue as a monthly periodical, has been entirely
dissipated. The present volume, indeed, as a
luxuriously illustrated volume, need fear no com-
parison either with one very brilliant contem-
porary, or with ono or two almost equally admirable
predecessors.