Goldsmith's essays

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About this book

The essays by Oliver Goldsmith include a biographical memoir presented as supposedly written by the Ordinary of Newgate, beginning with a statement about human frailty. The memoir describes a life marked by varied turns of fortune and a persistent uniformity of conduct, calling the whole a regular confusion.

A discussion of women and war says that objections about women’s delicate frames and tender dispositions may need answering before a proposed design is explained. The argument invokes the Amazons as a people who expelled their men by force of arms, defended themselves by their own prowess, governed and conducted warfare. A discussion of verse weighs restrictions imposed by rhyme against restrictions imposed by particular kinds of metrical feet, judging the advantages and disadvantages fairly balanced.

About the author

Oliver Goldsmith

The Vicar of Wakefield, printed in 1766, turned the ruin of a country clergyman into a fable both comic and sentimental, and stayed in print for two centuries. Its author was born on 10 November 1728 in Ireland, either near Ballymahon in County Longford or at Elphin, County Roscommon, the son of an Anglican curate.