OLIVER GOLDSMITH A BIOGRAPHY BY WASHINGTON IRVING EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, BY H. E. COBLENTZ, A.M. TEACHER OF ENGLISH IN THE SOUTH DIVISION HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON, U.S.A. D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS EDITOR'S PREFACE IN the preparation of Washington Irving's Life of Goldsmith the editor has often recalled Scott's Antiquarian, who, in preparing some precious manuscript for the press, made "notes on all that was dark, and all that was clear, and all that was neither dark nor clear." There was a strong temptation to annex Boswell's Life of Johnson, and to make a contemporary historical and literary document as large as the book itself. The wealth of information with which to overannotate the book is so great that an editor of the Life feels guilty in making so few notes. Yet the editor hopes that he has erred, if at all, on the side of a minimum of notes. He remembers well that many years ago, when he first read Irving's Goldsmith in a well-thumbed high school copy, he found no notes, nor did he miss them. The pleasure that he derived from the book was largely due to Irving, and to the fact that the book did not have to be read as a school exercise. As a teacher, he has found have read the book before it was put the absence of notes was no great loss. assigned for reading, let it be read, not studied in the intensive way. The notes and questions are intended as a staff, not as a crutch; and if the staff is not needed, let Irving lead the pupil. MILWAUKEE, that boys and girls (6 on the list," and that Since the book is now H. E. C. |