English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 18th century
Literature, in its different aspects, plays not a small part in the
lucubrations of Lien Chi. Two of the best letters are devoted to a
whimsical description of the vagaries of some of its humbler professors,
who hold a Saturday Club at the 'Broom' at Islington; others treat of
the decay of poetry; of novels, and 'Tristram Shandy' in particular; of
the necessity of intrigue or riches as a means to success. Nor are
Art and the Drama neglected. The virtuoso, who afforded such a fund
of amusement to Fielding and Smollett, receives his full share of
attention; and in the papers upon acting and actors, Goldsmith once more
displays that critical common-sense which he had shown so conspicuously
in 'The Bee.' Travellers and their trivialities are freely ridiculed;
there are papers on Newmarket, on the Marriage Act, on the coronation,
on the courts of justice; on quacks, gaming, paint, mourning, and mad
dogs. There is a letter on the irreverent behaviour of the congregation
in St. Paul's; there is another on the iniquity of making shows of
public monuments. Now and then a more serious note is touched, as when
the author is stirred to unwonted gravity by the savage penal code of
his day, which, 'cementing the laws with blood,' closed every avenue
with a gibbet, and against which Johnson too lifted his sonorous voice.=
```'Scarce can our fields, such crowds at Tyburn die,
```With hemp the gallows and the fleet supply,'--=
he sang in 'London,' anticipating his later utterances in 'The Rambler.'
Goldsmith, on the other hand, crystallized in his verse the raw material
of which he made his Chinese philosopher the mouthpiece. Several of the
best known passages of his two longest poems have their first form in
the prose of Lien Chi. Indeed, one actual line of 'The Traveller,' 'A
land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,' is simply a textual quotation
from 'The Citizen of the World.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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