OLITBK GOLDSMITH S LIFTB ANT) TIMES, [BOOK n.
1757. disposed, when Mr. Griffiths laid Messrs, Podsley's shil-
Mt. 29, ling quarto before him, to any comparison or test less fair
than his own feeling of the objects and aims of poetry.
And this he stated with a strength and plainness which
marks with personal interest what was said of Gray, Por-
tions of a poem he had himself already -written, fragments of
exquisite simplicity j and in what the tone of this criticism
exhibits, we see what will one clay give unity and aim to
those poetical attempts, and raise them into enduring struc-
tures. We observe the gradual development of settled
views; the better defined thoughts which the rude begin-
nings of literature are breeding in him; the rich upturning
of the soil of his mind, as Mr, Griffiths passes with his harrow*
The toila and sufferings of tho past are now not only yielding
fruit to him, but teaching him how it may bo gathered, '
The lesson it wry simple, but of inappreciable value,
ant! the reverse of Horace Walpole's, It i« to study the
people, whom Walpolo would disregard j to address those
popular sympathies, which he aff<»et«»d to despise; to speak
tho language of tho heart, of which ho know not much; and
bttfuro all things fttutly, what BO little cnmo within the range
of his cxporionuo, tho JO.YB and tho sorrows of the poor.
It is the luHson which Roger Awiham would have taught
two hundred and fifty years before—to think m & wise man,
but to speak as the common people, " We cannot without
** some regret," Goldsmith wrote, " behold talents 10 capable
" of giving pleasure to all, exerted in efforts-* that at best can
u amuse only the few; we cannot behold this rising Poet
11 soaking fame among the learned, without hinting to him
** tho mmw advice that lacerates used to give his Scholars,
** titudy Hit* Peo|»fe, Tills study it is that has conducted the
'* great Masters of antiquity up to immortality, Pindar