So Johnson was Dr. major, Goldsmith only Dr. minor.
But soon these days of wealth were over; soon Goldsmith's money
was all spent, and once again he had to sit down to grinding
work. He wrote many things, but the next great work he published
was another poem, The Deserted Village.
The Deserted Village, like The Traveller, is written in the
heroic couplet which, since the days of Dryden, had held its
ground as the best form of English poetry. In these poems the
couplet has reached its very highest level, for although his
rimes are smooth and polished Goldsmith has wrought into them
something of tender grace and pathos which sets them above the
diamond-like glitter of Pope's lines. His couplets are
transformed by the Celtic touch.
The poem tells the story of a village which had once been happy
and flourishing, but which is now quite deserted and fallen to
ruins. The village is thought by some people to have been
Lissoy, where Oliver had lived as a boy, but others think this
cannot be, for they say no Irish village was ever so peaceful and
industrious as Goldsmith pictures his village to have been.
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