While he makes no violent breach with the classical school, he prophesies the critical doctrine of the nineteenth century. He calls for the "energetic language of simple nature, which is now grown into disrepute." "If the production does not keep nature in view, it will be destitute of truth and probability, without which the beauties of imitation cannot subsist." Still he by no means falls into the quagmire of realism. For, continues he, "if on the other hand the imitation is so close as to be mistaken for nature, the pleasure will then cease, because the [Greek: mimêsis] or imitation, no longer appears." Even when wrong, Goldsmith is generally half-way right; and this is especially true of the critical judgments contained in his first published book. The impudence of 'The Enquiry' (1759) is delicious. What this young Irishman, fluting it through Europe some five years before, had not learned about the 'Condition of Polite Learning' in its principal countries, might fill a ponderous folio. What he did learn, eked out with harmless misstatement, flashes of inspiration, and a clever argument to prove that criticism has always been the foe of letters, managed to fill a respectable duodecimo, and brought him to the notice of publishers and scholars. The essay has catholicity, independence, and wit, and it carries itself with whimsical ease. Every sentence steps out sprightly. Of the French Encyclopédies: "Wits and dunces contribute their share, and Diderot as well as Desmaretz are candidates for oblivion. The genius of the first supplies the gale of favor, and the latter adds the useful ballast of stupidity." Of the Germans: "They write through volumes, while they do not think through a page.... Were angels to write books, they never would write folios." And again: "If criticism could have improved the taste of a people, the Germans would have been the most polite nation alive." That settles the Encyclopedias and the Germans. So each nationality is sententiously reviewed and dismissed with an epigram that even to-day sounds not altogether unjust, rather amusing and urbane than acrimonious.