Goldsmith's Indebtedness to Voltaire and Justus Van Effen

Abstract

The recent publication of Les Sources frangaises de Goldsmith, by A. L. Sells,' proves that Goldsmith was indeed a citizen of the world in more ways than one. R. S. Crane and H. J. Smith had previously shown Goldsmith's extensive indebtedness to the Lettres chinoises of D'Argens when writing his own series of Chinese letters for the Public Ledger.2 The chief discovery of Mr. Sells concerns the intimate relationship in spirit and substance between the writings of Marivaux and of Goldsmith. The influence second in importance, however, as Mr. Sells points out, is that of Voltaire. On peut dire qu' l1'exception de Marivaux, Voltaire, l'homme et l'ceuvre, ont occup6 Goldsmith plus que tous les autres 6crivains frangais ensemble.3 Ample as is the evidence brought forward to support this assertion, it is nevertheless far from complete, as the following passages, unacknowledged as to source by Goldsmith, and unnoted by Sells or other commentators, show. In the seventh number of Goldsmith's periodical, The Bee (November 17, 1759), nearly four hundred words from his essay Of are an unacknowledged translation of an article on the same subject which Voltaire had contributed to Diderot's Encyclopedie. Moreover, Goldsmith has further padded the essay by extensive borrowing from another article (by D'Alembert) in the same volume of the Encyclopddie entitled Elocution. Encyclopedie, art. Lloquence, V (Paris, 1755), 529: L'Eloquence ... est nde avant les regles de la Rh6torique, comme les The Bee, No. VII, November 17, 1759 (Works, ed. Gibbs,' II, 420 ff.): Eloquence has preceded the rules of rhetoric, as languages have been