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PKEFACE.
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first illustrated Goldsmith's boyish love of dress, I have
been enabled to add some curious details derived from a discovery of yet earlier date, connecting with his very outset in life as a medical student his indulgence in those innocent foibles.
The reader will do me the justice to remember that any
apparent depreciation of the labours of a predecessor in the same field with myself has been forced upon me. I had no thought towards this gentleman but of gratitude in con- nection with the pursuit which had occupied us in common, until he repelled the expression of that feeling. Of course I did not think his book a good one, or I would not have written mine; but I liked his liking for the subject; had profited not a little by his exertions in connection with it, valued the new facts he had contributed to its illustration, and was content, without the mention of any adverse opinion as to the mode in which he had used those materials, to let the reader silently infer the reason which had induced my own attempt. For why should I now conceal that the very extent of my sympathy with the purpose of his biography had unhappily convinced me of its utter failure in his hands; and that for this reason, with no dislike of him, but much love for Goldsmith, the present biography was undertaken? It seemed no unworthy task to. rescue one of the most fascinating writers in the language from one of its dullest books, from a posthumous admiration more harassing than any spite that vexed poor Goldsmith while he lived, from a clumsy and incessant exaltation far worse than Hawkins's absurd contempt or the amusing slights of Boswell. In the course of this attempt it became necessary to correct many errors |
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