At this time I think he had published nothing with his name, though it
was pretty generally known that one Dr. Goldsmith was the authour of An
Enquiry into the present State of polite Learning in Europe, and of The
Citizen of the World, a series of letters supposed to be written
from London by a Chinese. No man had the art of displaying with more
advantage as a writer, whatever literary acquisitions he made. 'Nihil
quod tetigit non ornavit.' His mind resembled a fertile, but thin soil.
There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to
be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of the forest
did not grow there; but the elegant shrubbery and the fragrant parterre
appeared in gay succession. It has been generally circulated and
believed that he was a mere fool in conversation; but, in truth, this
has been greatly exaggerated. He had, no doubt, a more than common share
of that hurry of ideas which we often find in his countrymen, and which
sometimes produces a laughable confusion in expressing them.
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