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diff --git a/old/62390-h/62390-h.htm b/old/62390-h/62390-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index c5d78e7..0000000 --- a/old/62390-h/62390-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2371 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Family Letters of Oliver Goldsmith, by Sir Ernest Clarke. - </title> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - -div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} -div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} -hr.tiny {width: 15%; margin-left: 42.5%; margin-right: 42.5%;} - -.indentright {padding-right: 5em;} -.indentright2 {padding-right: 15em;} -.indentright3 {padding-right: 10em;} -.indent {padding-left: 3em;} -.indent2 {padding-left: 6em;} -.indent3 {padding-left: 9em;} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; -} -.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} - - -@media screen, print -{ - img.drop-cap - { - float: left; - margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; - } - - p.drop-cap:first-letter - { - color: transparent; - visibility: hidden; - margin-left: -0.9em; - } -} -@media handheld -{ - img.drop-cap - { - display: none; - } - - p.drop-cap:first-letter - { - color: inherit; - visibility: visible; - margin-left: 0; - } -} - - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - - -.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} - -.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: .8em; - text-decoration: - none; -} - -.poetry-container {text-align: center;} -.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} -.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} -.poetry .first {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - </style> - </head> - - -<body> - - -<pre> - -Project Gutenberg's The Family Letters of Oliver Goldsmith, by Ernest Clarke - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Family Letters of Oliver Goldsmith - A Paper Read Before the Bibliographical Society, October 15th, 1917 - -Author: Ernest Clarke - -Release Date: June 13, 2020 [EBook #62390] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAMILY LETTERS OF OLIVER *** - - - - -Produced by Sonya Schermann, David E. Brown, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<h1>THE FAMILY LETTERS OF<br /> -OLIVER GOLDSMITH.</h1> - -<p><small>A PAPER READ BEFORE THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY,<br /> -OCTOBER 15, 1917.</small></p> - - -<p><small>BY</small><br /> -SIR ERNEST CLARKE, M.A., F.S.A.</p> - - -<p><small>LONDON:<br /> -REPRINTED BY BLADES, EAST & BLADES, FROM<br /> -THE SOCIETY’S <i>TRANSACTIONS</i>.</small></p> - -<p><small>1920.</small></p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE FAMILY LETTERS OF<br /> -OLIVER GOLDSMITH.</h2></div> - - -<hr class="tiny" /> -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By</span> SIR ERNEST CLARKE, M.A., F.S.A.</p> - - -<p class="center"><i>Read 15 October, 1917.</i></p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/i_003.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - - -<p class="drop-cap">IN a paper which I was privileged to read before this -honourable Society three years ago as to “New Lights -on Chatterton,” I mentioned incidentally that the -researches of which that paper was the outcome had -arisen out of the examination by me of a large bundle -of papers that had been collected by Bishop Percy of Dromore, the editor -of the famous <i>Reliques of Ancient Poetry</i>, and had apparently remained -unexplored since his death in 1811. The Chatterton documents were -by no means the most important and were certainly the least puzzling of -the array of miscellaneous papers included in this bundle, which contained -not only a variety of notes about Shakespeare and other subjects which -had engaged the Bishop’s attention, but chiefly and most interestingly a -large quantity of original letters written by and about Oliver Goldsmith.</p> - -<p>To discuss in detail the whole of the questions arising out of these -Goldsmith papers would really amount to writing a new life of that poet, -which I have no intention of doing. There exist already many biographies -of Oliver by writers of the first rank, and no fact of salient importance -concerning himself remains to be revealed, whatever may be said as to his -writings. There are, it is true, side-lights of some literary interest and -value afforded by the papers that have come unexpectedly my way through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -the kindness and generosity of the great grand-daughter of the Bishop by -whose favour you have the advantage of personally inspecting the original -letters which I shall presently describe: but this is not the occasion for -minutię concerning them.</p> - -<p>What therefore with your permission I propose now to do is to deal -only with the letters written by Oliver Goldsmith at various periods of his -life to members of his own family and old friends of his boyhood resident -in his native province, and to deduce from them some general -reflections as to the warmth of his affections and the simplicity of his -typically Irish character.</p> - -<p>Thomas Percy, to whom we mainly owe the preservation of these -letters, was almost an exact contemporary of Oliver Goldsmith. The latter -was born on 10 November, 1728; Percy on 13 April, 1729. They first -met on Wednesday, 21 February, 1759, as fellow-guests of Dr. Grainger, -the author of the “Sugar Cane,” at the Temple Exchange Coffee House, -Temple Bar. Percy was then a bachelor clergyman with a college living -at Easton Maudit in Northamptonshire, but with literary associations that -kept him much in London; and Goldsmith was just emerging from the -chrysalis stage of hack-work for the reviews and was lodging in a garret -at Green Arbour Court near the Old Bailey. Percy met Goldsmith again -on 26 February, at Dodsley’s, for whom Oliver was preparing his “Enquiry -into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe,” and on Saturday, -3 March, before returning to Easton Maudit, he paid a visit to Goldsmith -at Green Arbour Court with the result expressed thus in Percy’s own -words:</p> - -<p>“The Doctor was writing his Enquiry, etc., in a wretched dirty room -in which there was but one chair, and when he from civility offered it -to his visitant, himself was obliged to sit in the window. While they -were conversing, someone gently rapped at the door, and being desired -to come in, a poor ragged little girl of very decent behaviour, entered, -who dropping a curtsie, said ‘My mamma sends her compliments and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -begs the favour of you to lend her a chamber-pot full of coal.’” (Percy -Memoir, p. 61.)</p> - -<p>Percy was introduced by Goldsmith to Dr. Johnson on 31 May, 1761, -and the acquaintance with the great lexicographer and his literary friends -soon ripened and grew more intimate. “The Club” founded by Johnson -and Reynolds in 1764 included Goldsmith from the first: Percy and two -others were admitted to the charmed circle rather later (15 February, -1768). When Goldsmith died in April, 1774, the general impression -seems to have been that Johnson would write a biography of him for his -“Lives of the Poets”; but difficulties of one or another sort—chiefly -perhaps Johnson’s inertia, for he was then a man of 65—intervened to -prevent this: and eleven years afterwards, when Johnson himself was dead, -Percy was stimulated by Edmond Malone to undertake the task himself.</p> - -<p>It is not improbable that he had in his own mind long before this -that something of the kind might have to be done by him, for there is -evidence in the papers confided to me for examination that Percy had -commissioned an inpecunious younger brother of the poet named Maurice -Goldsmith to collect for him all the procurable letters written by Oliver -to members of his family.</p> - -<p>The biographers and commentators on Goldsmith have made much -of an extract from a letter from Percy to Malone which is printed on -page 237 of Vol. VIII (1858) of Nichols’ <i>Literary Illustrations</i>; but they -have been unaware of the letter from Malone to which it is a reply. This -original letter of Malone is amongst those in the bundle which I have -been exploring. It is dated from London on 2 March, 1785, and gives -some interesting particulars as to Johnson’s affairs. The essential parts -as to Goldsmith are as follows:</p> - -<p>“Soon after the death of poor Dr. Johnson, I mentioned to one of -the executors that I had formerly given him a letter from Dr. Wilson, -a fellow of the college of Dublin, relative to Dr. Goldsmith, who was -his classfellow. I did not then know Dr. Johnson as well as I did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -afterwards, and improvidently gave him the original instead of a copy. -I therefore requested, if it should be found among his papers, it might -be sent to me. I suppose Dr. Scott, to whom I talked on the subject, -did not exactly recollect what I had mentioned, for about a fortnight -ago, a parcel of papers was sent to me marked at the outside -‘Dr. Goldsmith,’ as I imagine from the Executors (for I received no -note with them), who conceived they belonged to me. On inspecting -them, I found they consisted of some very curious materials collected -by your Lordship for the life of Goldsmith, which I shall take great care -of till I hear from you on the subject. I often pressed Dr. Johnson -to write his life, and he would have done so, had not the booksellers -from some clashing of interests in the property of his works excluded -them from their great collection of English Poetry. It is a great pity -that these materials should be lost. Why will not your lordship, who -knew Goldsmith so well, undertake the arranging of them.... Dr. J. -used to say that he never could get an accurate account of Goldsmith’s -history while he was abroad.... Goldsmith’s letters are surely characteristick -and worth preserving.”</p> - -<p>Percy no doubt asked for this bundle of papers to be sent to him in -Ireland; and when it was received, he wrote from Dublin on 16 June, -1785, the letter to Malone which, as stated above, is printed in Vol. VIII -of Nichols’ <i>Literary Illustrations</i>:</p> - -<p>“I have long owed you my very grateful acknowledgments for a -most obliging letter, which contained much interesting information, -particularly with respect to Goldsmith’s memoirs. The paper which -you have recovered in my own handwriting, giving dates and many -interesting particulars relating to his life, was dictated to me by himself -one rainy day at Northumberland House, and sent by me to Dr. Johnson, -which I had concluded to be irrevocably lost. The other memoranda -on the subject were transmitted to me by his brother and others of -his family, to afford materials for a Life of Goldsmith, which Johnson<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -was to write and publish for their benefit. But he utterly forgot them -and the subject.... Goldsmith has an only brother living, a cabinet -maker, who has been a decent tradesman, a very honest worthy man, -but he has been very unfortunate, and is at this time in great indigence. -It has occurred to such of us here as were acquainted with the Doctor -to print an edition of his poems, chiefly under the direction of the -Bishop of Killaloe<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and myself, and prefix a new correct life of -the author, for the poor man’s benefit; and to get you and Sir Joshua -Reynolds, Mr. Steevens, etc., to recommend the same in England, especially -among the members of The Club. If we can but subsist this poor -man at present, and relieve him from immediate indigence, Mr. Orde, -our Secretary of State, has given us hope that he will procure him some -little place that will make him easy for life; and then we shall have -shown our regard for the departed Bard by relieving his only brother, -and so far as I hear, the only one of his family that wants relief.”</p> - -<p>A scheme for publication of Goldsmith’s <i>Poetical Works</i> was set on -foot in Dublin about this time, as appears from the following printed -document found amongst the Bishop’s papers:</p> - -<p class="right">“Dublin, June 1, 1785.</p> - -<p>“PROPOSALS for Printing by Subscription, The Poetical Works of -Dr. Oliver Goldsmith; For the Benefit of his only surviving Brother, -Mr. Maurice Goldsmith, to which will be prefixed, <small>A NEW LIFE OF THE -AUTHOR</small>. In this will be Corrected Innumerable Errors of Former -Biographers, From Original Letters of the Doctor and his Friends, but -Chiefly from An Account of Dr. Goldsmith’s Life, Dictated by Himself -to A Gentleman, who is in Possession of the Manuscript.”</p> - -<p>The subscription price was to be a guinea, and subscriptions would -be received by the publisher, L. White, No. 86, Dame Street. What -happened to the money received for the subscriptions is not known;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -probably Maurice Goldsmith drew cash “on account” for most of it. -Anyhow the book was never published.</p> - -<p>If it had been set about at once, and been limited as proposed to -Goldsmith’s <i>Poetical Works</i>, and a Life of him compiled from the original -materials collected by Percy, it would doubtless have been a success. As -it was, the Bishop’s episcopal duties and other preoccupations appear -to have disinclined him to undertake the work himself, and he therefore -placed it in other hands, with very unfortunate results to himself and -to those members of the Goldsmith family for whose benefit it was -intended. Maurice Goldsmith no doubt told his relatives of the pecuniary -advantages that were in store for him when the work came out, and -appeals for help reached the Bishop from the daughter of Henry Goldsmith, -from the widow of Maurice, from Charles Goldsmith, and from a son of -Charles named John Goldsmith. In the absence of the published work -these appeals had to be met out of the Bishop’s private purse, and involved -him in much distressing correspondence with the impoverished relatives -of his dead friend.</p> - -<p>At what period Percy formed the idea of expanding the publication -so as to include all Goldsmith’s known works—prose as well as poetry—is -not clear. Probably he was more concerned to see the Life written -or at least in preparation. It must be remembered that he was exceedingly -badly placed for now attempting work of this kind. He was in a remote -part of Ireland where the posts were irregular and the magazines did not -reach him till months after their issue. Writing to Malone on 16 June, -1785, he said: “I see publications about as soon as they would reach the -East Indies.” (<i>Lit. Ill.</i>, VIII, 237.)</p> - -<p>He seems to have attempted to shift the burden of compilation of the -biography on to a somewhat fulsome correspondent, Dr. Thomas Campbell, -Rector of Clones. When, after a long interval, Campbell’s efforts proved -unsatisfactory, the Bishop tried as collaborator the Rev. E. H. Boyd, the -translator of Dante, with equally disappointing results, Boyd, like Campbell,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -having no personal knowledge of Goldsmith. Eventually he had to set to -work himself on a thorough revision; but troubles arose after he had sent -the manuscript to the publishers in London (Cadell & Davies). Evidently -that firm, to give local colour to the narrative, got Samuel Rose to add some -particulars about Goldsmith (not always complimentary) from Boswell’s <i>Life -of Johnson</i>. Percy, who was not consulted, dissented from these “interpolations,”<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> -and eventually repudiated all responsibility for the work, which -did not actually see the light of day until it appeared in four volumes in -1801. Percy let his correspondents who wrote to him about Goldsmith -know how badly he was being treated, and they replied softly to him, -except George Steevens, who wrote on 9 September, 1797:</p> - -<p>“Thus my Lord, you are left to make the best of your bargain; for if -you cannot intimidate you must submit. It is true that the works of -Goldsmith will always be sought after; but with equal truth it may be -observed that in this kingdom you will discover little zeal to promote the -welfare of his needy relatives, hundreds of objects here having a superior -claim to publick charity.” (<i>Litt. Ill.</i>, VII, 1848, pp. 30-1.)</p> - -<p>After Percy’s death in 1811 the major part of his voluminous correspondence -with literary and other friends appears to have descended to his -elder daughter Barbara, who had married in 1795 Mr. Samuel Isted, of -Ecton, Northamptonshire. It probably consisted not so much of Percy’s -own letters, which were doubtless retained in most cases by their recipients, -as of his correspondents’ letters to him, with drafts of his replies to the -more important of them. John Nichols, the antiquarian printer who -managed the <i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>, was a great friend and frequent -correspondent of Percy, and the sixth volume (1831) of the well-known -<i>Literary Illustrations</i> contained a short memoir and portrait of Percy, -with a selection of his letters partly derived from William Upcott, Assistant -Librarian of the London Institution (p. viii of Introduction). The 856 -pages of the next Volume VII of the <i>Illustrations</i>, which was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -published till seventeen years later (1848), were practically entirely devoted -to letters from and to Percy—mostly the latter. This correspondence, -according to the “Advertisement” by J. B. Nichols, the editor, “was not -in my possession at the completion of the sixth volume, but has been -acquired since by public sale.”<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Even this huge book did not contain all -the Percy letters, for the eighth and final volume of the <i>Illustrations</i>, not -published till 1858, was, so far as the letterpress (436 pages) is concerned, -wholly taken up with the rest of the “Percy correspondence.” There are -many references to Goldsmith and to the long-delayed “Memoir” of 1801 -in these letters, but nothing of great importance, and I therefore have to -fall back on the bundle of “Goldsmithiana” which has happily been -preserved in the other branch of the Percy family—the Meades.</p> - -<p>The story of the incubation, preparation and final publication of the -Edition of 1801 is long, complicated and tedious. It does not however -particularly concern us here, except in so far as we are indebted to -Bishop Percy for having collected practically all the original letters written -by Goldsmith to members of his family, and for having in his disappointment -after they were published, put them away with the other documents -concerning the publication, in a bundle which has been practically -unexplored ever since. Setting aside therefore any questions as to the -merits or demerits of what has been consistently labelled by subsequent -commentators as the “Percy Memoir,” we are left with the consideration -of the point to which I had intended to address myself exclusively, the -epistolary style of Oliver Goldsmith himself. Percy could not resist the -temptation of editing his friend’s letters—not much, it is true, but still -enough to induce us to turn to the originals, as we are now enabled to -do through the kindness of their present possessor, Miss Constance -Meade.</p> - -<p>Now whilst Percy, as I have indicated, was an ardent and industrious -letter writer, Oliver Goldsmith emphatically was not.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>One of Percy’s most frequent correspondents, James Grainger, M.D. -(1724-1766), who was, as already mentioned, the first to introduce Percy -and Goldsmith to each other, wrote to the former on 24 March, 1764: -“When I taxed little Goldsmith for not writing as he promised me, his -answer was that he never wrote a letter in his life, and faith, I believe -him, except to a bookseller for money.” (Nichols’ <i>Literary Illustrations</i>, -Vol. VII, 286.) The letters written by Goldsmith to members of his -family and Irish friends of his youth which were collected from various -quarters at the instance of Percy after the poet’s death show him to have -had a great power of expressing his feelings in simple and moving language, -all the more interesting as the writer could not possibly have imagined -that they would ever be seen in the cold light of print. Such letters -divide themselves naturally into three categories, viz.: those written (1) -whilst he was a student in Scotland and abroad; (2) after he had returned -to England and was a struggling hack-writer; (3) when he had achieved -success in the literary world. It will be convenient to consider these -three series of letters separately.</p> - - -<h3>STUDENT LETTERS.</h3> - -<p>I omit from consideration the letter Oliver is alleged, on no evidence -at all, to have written to his mother in 1751 after his adventures in -Ireland and attempted voyage to America. This is obviously a hash-up -by some later pen of the story which was written out after the poet’s death -by his sister Mrs. Catherine Hodson for the purposes of the “Percy -Memoir,” the original of which in Mrs. Hodson’s own writing and spelling -is among the papers which I exhibit. The earliest of Goldsmith’s own -letters which is known to have survived was that written from Edinburgh -by Oliver to his benefactor Uncle Contarine on 8 May, 1753. This -was unearthed by Sir James Prior at a later period of his investigations, -having been “long though vainly sought in various quarters,” and is -published in his Vol. I, 1837, pp. 145-7. What has happened to it since -I have not been able to discover. Oliver describes in it his progress with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -his medical studies, and winds up thus: “How I enjoy the pleasing hope -of returning with skill, and to find my friends stand in no need of my -assistance! How many happy years do I wish you! and nothing but -want of health can take from you happiness, since you so well pursue -the paths that conduct to virtue.”</p> - -<p>There is another letter of about the same period addressed by Oliver -from Edinburgh to his brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson of Lissoy, of which -only a fragment now exists. It was formerly in the Rowfant collection -of the late Mr. Locker-Lampson, but now belongs to Mr. F. R. Halsey -of New York. In it Oliver speaks of his attending the public lectures: -“I am in my lodging. I have hardly any society but a folio book, a -skeleton, my cat and my meagre landlady. I read hard, which is a thing -I never could do when the study was displeasing.” He refers to his -impecunious position and to the sacrifices his relations had made on his -behalf. He asks his dear Dan to remember him to every friend. “There -is one on whom I never think without affliction, but conceal it from him.” -(This apparently refers to Uncle Contarine). “Direct to me at Surgeon -Sinclairs in the Trunk Close, Edinburgh.”</p> - -<p>The next letter of this student series is to his school-friend and -companion, Robert Bryanton of Ballymahon, dated from Edinburgh -“Sepr. ye 26th 1753.” The original of this letter is the earliest in point -of date which I am able to exhibit to you this afternoon. Oliver -commences by a humorous apology for not having written before. “I -might allege that business had never given me time to finger a pen: but -I suppress those and twenty others equally plausible and as easily -invented, since they might all be attended with a slight inconvenience -of being known to be lies. Let me then speak truth: an hereditary -indolence (I have it from the mother’s side) has hitherto prevented my -writing to you, and still prevents my writing at least twenty five letters -more, due to my friends in Ireland: no turn-spit dog gets up into his -wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write: yet no dog ever -loved the roast meat he turns better than I do him I now address.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>This letter was a long one, with clever references to the Scottish -scenery and people, the relations of the sexes, the characteristics of the -Scotch women, and other light hearted topics. It was published by Percy -in the Edition of 1801, with a number of genteel emendations, such as -“mouth puckered up so as scarcely to admit a pea” in replacement of -“mouth puckered up to the size of an Issue,” and the omission of the -last paragraph and also the postscript: “Give my sincere regards (not -compliments do you mind) to your agreeable family, and give my service -to my mother if you see her: for as you express it in Ireland, I have a -sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me, Student of Physick in -Edinburgh.”</p> - -<p>The next letter in order of date is a second one to Uncle Contarine, -not dated but ascribed to the close of 1753 or January, 1754. It was -retrieved by Prior for his Life of 1837 (I, 154), but its present whereabouts -is unknown. It announces Oliver’s intention to go to France in the -following February, to spend the spring and summer in Paris, and go to -Leyden at the beginning of the next winter. He sends his earnest love -to his cousin Jenny (Mrs. Lawder) and her husband, asks after “my poor -Jack” (doubtless his youngest brother), and describes himself as “dear -Uncle, Your most devoted Oliver Goldsmith.”</p> - -<p>The next letter is an important and very interesting one, and describes -Oliver’s compulsory change of plans. It was sent from Leyden some time -in the summer of 1754, and is written on three pages of a foolscap sheet -of unusually large size, 15 × 9¾ inches. The fourth page has, as you -will see, this address upon it: “To | the Revd. Mr. Thos. Contarine, at -Kilmore near | Carrick on Shannon in Ireland,” with the words added -“This letter is chargd. 1s. 8d.” It appears therefrom that he embarked -from Edinburgh on board a Scotch ship bound for Bordeaux and that a -storm drove them into Newcastle, where he was arrested.</p> - -<p>“Seven men and me were one day on shore, and the following -evening, as we were all verry merry, the room door bursts open; enters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -a Sergeant and Twelve Grenadiers with their bayonets screwd, and puts -us all under the King’s arrest. It seems my Company were Scotch men -in the French service. I endeavoured all I could to prove my innocence: -however, I remained in prison with the rest a Fortnight and with difficulty -got off even then. Dr. Sr. keep this all a secret, or at least say -it was for debt: for it were once known at the university I should hardly -get a degree.”</p> - -<p>As to his future movements, Goldsmith says in this letter from Leyden:</p> - -<p>“Physic is by no means taught so well as in Edinburgh.... I am not -certain how long my stay here will be: however I expect to have the -happiness of seeing you at Kidmore, if I can, next March.”</p> - -<p>Oliver describes in much humorous detail the scenery of the country -and characteristics of the Dutch people. He says:</p> - -<p>“The downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in Nature. -Upon a head of lank hair he wears a half-cockd narrow-leav’d hat, lacd -with black ribon: no coat but seven waistcoats and nine pairs of -breeches so that his hips reach almost up to his arm-pits. This well -cloathed vegetable is now fit to see company or make love: but what a -pleasing creature is the object of his appetite: why she wears a large -friez cap with a deal of flanders lace and for every pair of breeches he -carries, she puts on two petticoats. Is it not surprizing how things -shoud ever come close enough to make it a match?”</p> - -<p>Bishop Percy prints the whole of this letter, except that he delicately -bowdlerised one or two phrases in it, and from the Percy version it has -reappeared in every one of the succeeding biographies.</p> - - -<h3>EARLY LETTERS FROM LONDON.</h3> - -<p>The second series of letters begins after Oliver had returned to -England about a couple of years, and was “by a very little practice as -a physician and a very little reputation as a poet making a shift to live,” -as he describes it in a letter to his brother-in-law Daniel Hodson, dated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -from the Temple Exchange Coffee House, on 27 December, 1757. His -brother Charles Goldsmith had paid Oliver a visit in London, and had -informed him “of the fatigue you were at in soliciting a subscription to -relieve me, not only among my friends and relations, but acquaintance -in general. Tho my pride might feel some repugnance at being thus -relieved, yet my gratitude can suffer no diminution.... Whether I eat or -starve, live in a first floor or four pairs of stairs high, I still remember -them [my friends] with ardour, nay my very country comes in for a share -of my affection. Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du -Pays, as the french call it.” He hopes that if he can be absent six weeks -from London next summer “to spend three of them among my friends -in Ireland. My design is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor -levy contributions—neither to excite envy nor solicit favour: in fact my -circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too poor to be gazed at, -and too rich to need assistance.”</p> - -<p>Percy here omits what he calls “some mention of private family -matters.” The letter is at this point frayed and imperfect, but these -words can be made out:</p> - -<p>“Charles is furnished with everything necessary, but why ... stranger -to assist him. I hope he will be improved in his ... against his -return [from Jamaica]. Poor Jenny! But it is what I expected. My -mother too has lost Pallas! My dear Sir, these things give me real -uneasiness, and I could wish to redress them. But at present there is -hardly a Kingdom in Europe in which I am not a debtor” etc.</p> - -<p>After an interval, Goldsmith had what was for him a real bout of -letter-writing to a number of his kinsfolk and friends, to solicit their -assistance in getting subscriptions for his “Enquiry into the Present State -of Polite Learning in Europe” on which he was engaged, and which -was about to be published. On 7 August, 1758, he wrote to his cousin -and school-fellow Edward Mills that his “Essay on the Present State of -Taste and Literature in Europe,” as it was then called, was “now printing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -in London, and I have requested Mr. Radcliff, Mr. Lawder, Mr. Bryanton, -my brother Mr. Henry Goldsmith, and my brother-in-law Mr. Hodson, -to circulate my proposals among their acquaintances.”</p> - -<p>The letter to Dr. Radcliff is unknown: the date of that to Mrs. -Lawder, asking her husband’s help, is 15 August, 1758; that to Bryanton -is 14 August, 1758; the letter to Henry Goldsmith is lost, but a second -letter to him on the same subject says “I shall the beginning of next -month send over two hundred and fifty books.” As the work was -published on 2 April, 1759, the date of this second letter to the Revd. -Henry Goldsmith was probably February, 1759. (It has been preserved, -but is not actually dated.)</p> - -<p>Taking these several communications in the order of their date, the -letter of 7 August, 1758, to Edward Mills, which I exhibit to-day, is a -frank appeal for help in circulating the prospectus of Oliver’s new book, -but otherwise contains nothing of importance. “Every book published -here [London] the printers in Ireland republish there, without giving the -Author the least consideration for his coppy. I would in this respect -disappoint their avarice, and have all the additional advantages that may -result from the sale of my performance there to myself.”</p> - -<p>Neither Mills nor Lawder (to whom a similar request was made -through the medium of his wife on the 15th of the same month of -August, 1758) appears to have taken any notice of it, and in writing to -his brother Henry at a later date—about February, 1759—Oliver says -“The behaviour of Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder is a little extraordinary: -however, their answering neither you nor me is a sufficient indication of -their disliking the employment which I assignd them. As their conduct -is different from what I had expected so I have made an alteration in -mine. I shall the beginning of next month send over two hundred and -fifty books, which are all that I fancy, can be well sold among you.”</p> - -<p>The next letter, that dated 14 August, 1758, addressed to Robert -Bryanton is only known to us through its appearance for the first time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -in Prior’s <i>Life</i> (I, 263). It complains of not having heard from Bryanton -or of his doings, gives an amusing prophecy of his own future fame 200 -years onwards as the author of the Essay on Polite Learning “a work -well worth its weight in diamonds,” and then descends suddenly to earth -with “Oh! Gods! Gods! here in a garret writing for bread and -expecting to be dunned for a milk-score! However, dear Bob, whether -in penury or affluence, serious or gay, I am ever thine. Give the most -warm and sincere wish you can conceive to your mother, Mrs. Bryanton, -to Miss Bryanton, to yourself: and if there be a favourite dog in the -family, let me be remembered to it.”</p> - -<p>The letter to Mrs. Lawder of 15 August, 1758, is a good deal more -guarded, as his relations with his cousin and her husband appear not to -have been at that time of a very cordial nature. The original has passed -through several hands, and has been reproduced more than once in -facsimile. I believe it is now the property of Mr. Sabin of Bond Street. -Oliver says he had written to Kilmore (Mrs. Lawder’s address) from -Leyden, from Louvain and from Rouen, but had received no answer. -“To what could I attribute this, please, but displeasure or forgetfulness?”... -“I heartily wish to be rich, if it were only for this reason to say -without a blush how much I esteem you, but alas I have many a fatigue -to encounter, before that happy time comes: when your poor old simple -friend may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his nature, sitting by -Kilmore fireside, recount the various adventures of an hard-fought life, -laugh over the follies of the day, join his flute to your harpsicord and -forget that he ever starv’d in those streets where Butler and Otway -starv’d before him.” After a pathetic allusion to the decaying mental -powers of his uncle Contarine, Oliver then makes his appeal as to the -“Polite Learning,” but “whether this request is complied with or not, -I shall not be uneasy.”</p> - -<p>The second letter to Daniel Hodson, which I exhibit, is provisionally -dated by the modern authorities about November, 1758. It was published<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -by Percy in the edition of 1801, with the family matters omitted, and some -few alterations and excisions. The letter really begins “You can’t expect -regularity in <i>a correspondence with</i> one who is regular in nothing.” Later, -Goldsmith says: “You imagine, I suppose, that every author by profession -lives in a garret, wears shabby cloaths and converses with the meanest -company; <i>but I assure you such a character is</i> entirely chimerical.” The -family matters omitted by Percy may as well be restored:</p> - -<p>“I am very much pleasd with the accounts you send me of your little -son; if I do not mistake that was his hand which subscrib’d itself -Gilbeen Hardly. There is nothing could please me more than a letter -filld with all the news of the country, but I fear you will think that too -troublesome, you see I never cease writing till a whole sheet of paper is -wrote out. I beg you will immitate me in this particular and give your -letters good measure. You can tell me, what visits you receive or pay, -who has been married or debauch’d, since my absence, what fine girls -you have starting up and beating of the veterans of my acquaintance -from future conquest. I suppose before I return I shall find all the -blooming virgins I once left in Westmeath shrivelled into a parcel of -hags with seven children apiece tearing down their petticoats. Most of -the Bucks and Bloods whom I left hunting and drinking and swearing -and getting bastards I find are dead. Poor devils they kick’d the world -before them. I wonder what the devil they kick now.” [End of first -sheet of letter.]</p> - -<p>On a fresh sheet:</p> - -<p>“Dear Sister I wrote to Kilmore [where the Lawders lived]. I wish -you would let me know how that family stands affected with regard -to me. My Brother Charles promised to tell me all about it but his -letter gave me no satisfaction in those particulars. I beg you and Dan -would put your hands to the oar and fill me a sheet with somewhat -or other, if you can’t get quite thro your selves lend Billy or Nancy -the pen and let the dear little things give me their nonsense. Talk all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -about your selves and nothing about me. You see I do so. I do not -know how my desire of seeing Ireland which had so long slept, has again -revived with so much ardour....” “I ... brother Charles is settled -to business. I see no probability of ... any other proceeding.” [Here -follow sixteen lines of writing, which have been very effectually blotted out -with ink of another tint, probably by the recipient, who sent the letter to -be read by a neighbour.]</p> - -<p>The letter ends thus (it is not signed):</p> - -<p>“Pray let me hear from my Mother since she will not gratify me herself -and tell me if in any thing I can be immediately serviceable to her. Tell -me how my Brother Goldsmith and his Bishop agree. Pray do this for -me for heaven knows I would do anything to serve you.” [ends.]</p> - -<p>The back page is blank, except the address in Goldsmith’s writing: -“Daniel Hodson Esq<sup>r</sup>. at Lishoy near | Ballymahon | Ireland.”</p> - -<p>We come now to the one letter to his brother the Revd. Henry -Goldsmith which has been preserved. It bears no date, and was doubtless -written about February, 1759. After speaking about the “Polite -Learning” book, Oliver goes on to describe his own difficulties:</p> - -<p>“You scarce can conceive how much eight years of disappointment -anguish and study have worn me down. Imagine to yourself a pale -melancholly visage with two great wrinkles between the eye-brows, -with an eye disgustingly severe and a big wig, and you may have a -perfect picture of my present appearance.”</p> - -<p>He then discusses and approves as judicious and convincing his -brother’s proposals for “breeding up your son as a scholar.” “Preach -then my dear Sir, to your son not the excellence of human nature nor the -disrespect of riches, but endeavour to teach him thrift and economy. Let -his poor wandering uncle’s example be placed in his eyes. I had learned -from books to love virtue before I was taught from experience the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -necessity of being selfish.” (The Percy Memoir of 1801 prunes and -waters down this passage.)</p> - -<p>After references to his mother and other members of the family, -Oliver mentions the imminent publication of his “catchpenny” life of -Voltaire, which has brought him in £20, and quotes some phrases of the -“heroicomical poem” on the design of which he had asked his brother’s -opinion in a previous letter (now lost).</p> - -<p>These are the well-known lines commencing</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">The window, patch’d with paper lent a ray,</div> -<div class="verse">That feebly show’d the state in which he lay</div> -</div></div> - -<p>with the subsequent references to the “sanded floor” the “humid wall” -the game of goose, “the twelve rules the royal martyr drew,” etc. These -lines with a different setting reappeared in Letter XXX of the Citizen of -the World, which first appeared in the <i>Public Ledger</i> for 2 May, 1760, -and some of them were worked afterwards into lines 227-36 of the -Deserted Village, 1770, where they are improved by the addition of:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“The Chest contriv’d a double debt to pay</div> -<div class="verse">A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Following his usual practice when he does set to work on a letter, -Oliver writes on to the extreme bottom of the page, and finishes thus: -“I am resolved to leave no space, tho I should fill it up only by telling -you what you very well know already, I mean that I am your most -affectionate friend and brother, Oliver Goldsmith.”</p> - - -<h3>LATER LETTERS.</h3> - -<p>There is now a long gap in the letters to his family, only in fact broken -by two communications, one to his nephew Henry dated 7 June, 1768, -condoling with him on the death of his father the Revd. Henry, and the -other to his own brother Maurice despatched about January, 1770, in -response to the latter’s request for financial assistance.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>The first of these two letters has only just come to light, having been -recently purchased through a dealer who got it from Nova Scotia by -Mr. William Harris Arnold of Nutley, New Jersey, U.S.A., to whose -kindness I owe a transcript of it. It is a letter of deep feeling at the -death of his brother, and contains a promise to help the nephew if -possible.</p> - -<p>The second letter to Maurice Goldsmith—the last of the series on -which I propose to comment—makes over to him a legacy of £15 which -Uncle Contarine had left to Oliver in his will, and regrets his inability -to help Maurice further. “I am not fond of thinking of the necessities -of those I love, when it is so very little in my power to help them. I am -sorry to find you are still every way unprovided for, and what adds to my -uneasiness is that I have received a letter from my sister Johnson by -which I learn that she is pretty much in the same circumstances.” It is -true that the King has made him Professor of Ancient History to the -newly established Royal Academy of Arts (1768), “but there is no salary -annexed, and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any -benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation are something like -ruffles to a man that wants a shirt.” Oliver sends kind messages to -members of the family, and asks specifically for particulars about them. -“A sheet of paper occasionally filled with news of this kind would make -me very happy and would keep you nearer my mind. As it is my dear -brother believe me to be Yours most affectionately, Oliver Goldsmith.”</p> - -<p>The remaining letters printed in the Percy Memoir do not concern -Goldsmith’s family, but it may be mentioned incidentally that they are -all in the bundle of Goldsmithiana left by the Bishop. They are (1) a -letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds written from France in 1770 when Oliver -acted as escort to Mrs. Horneck and her two charming daughters the -Jessamy Bride and Little Comedy. (2) A letter by Goldsmith to Bennet -Langton dated 7 September, 1771 (with, it may be added, the letter from -Langton—not printed in the Memoir—to which it is a reply). (3) Letters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -to Goldsmith from General Oglethorp (no date), Thomas Paine (21 December, -1772), John Oakman (a begging letter in verse, dated 27 March, -1773), and other miscellanea.</p> - - -<h3>MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.</h3> - -<p>I should be sorry if I left you with the impression that the letters from -which I have been reading extracts were the only original documents -connected with the poet and his works included in Dr. Percy’s manuscript -bundle of “Goldsmithiana.” The contrary is the case: but the time -available to me this afternoon is too short to enable me to discuss the -various interesting points that they raise. I feel, however, I must refer -in the briefest manner possible to some miscellaneous papers of different -kinds which I found therein relating to the preliminaries for and the -production of that delightful and ever-fresh comedy of “She Stoops to -Conquer,” first given to the world on Monday, 15 March, 1773. There are -a letter from the Prompter dated “Sunday evening” (no doubt 14 March, -1773), saying he had taken the necessary steps for changing the name -of the play from “The Mistakes of a Night”; orders for boxes for -subsequent performances; requests for free seats; congratulations and -criticism on its success; a full account in Percy’s writing of Goldsmith’s -personal chastisement of Evans the bookseller for Kenrick’s malicious -article in the <i>London Packet</i> of Wednesday, 24 March, 1773 (endorsed -in the Bishop’s hand “The termination of the affray with Evans, as first -intended, but afterwards altered out of tenderness to Dr. G’s Memory”); -a printed copy of the <i>London Packet</i> of Friday, 26 March, containing its -own account of the encounter with Evans; George Coleman’s original -letter of 23 March, 1773, begging Goldsmith to “take him off the rack -of the newspapers”; manuscript copies (not in Goldsmith’s writing) of -two rejected Epilogues to the play; and other documents of great human -interest.</p> - -<p>As I have consistently tried in this address to avoid indulging in -theories, and to limit myself to demonstrable facts, I refrain from a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -discussion as to why these documents of 1773 are in such force in the -resuscitated bundle of Percy papers, whereas there are comparatively few -and scattered documents of earlier date. I should not, however, be -surprised if Goldsmith, dreading that the commotion caused and public -comment excited by his scuffle with Evans might involve him in further -disagreeable consequences, had himself collected these papers and consulted -Percy personally thereon, with the result that they remained in -the latter’s custody.</p> - -<p>When nearly a quarter of a century later, Percy put his hand to the -preparation of the Memoir of his friend, he may have thought that the -discreditable incidents obscuring the memory of a great public success -were best buried in oblivion; and he therefore confined himself in the -published work to the statement that “She Stoops to Conquer” “added -very much to the author’s reputation, and brought down upon him a -torrent of congratulatory addresses and petitions from less fortunate -bards whose indigence compelled them to solicit his bounty, and of -scurrilous abuse from such of them, as being less reduced, only envied -his success.” (<i>Memoir</i>, p. 101.)</p> - -<p>Percy could not, it is true, resist the temptation of placing on record in -the Memoir “Tom Tickle’s” attack on Goldsmith in the <i>London Packet</i>: -but, says he, “we would not defile our page with this scurrilous production, -so shall insert it in the margin.” (pp. 103-5, notes.)</p> - -<p>It seems to me not unlikely that Percy’s opinion was sought as to -the wording of the defence or disclaimer by Goldsmith “To the Public” -which appeared in the <i>Daily Advertiser</i> of 31 March, 1773, as this also is -printed <i>in extenso</i> in the Memoir of 1801 (pp. 107-8). Dr. Johnson had -certainly no hand in its preparation, for on Saturday, 3 April, in response -to an enquiry by the obsequious Boswell, he said: “Sir, Dr. Goldsmith -would no more have asked me to have wrote such a thing as that for him, -than he would have asked me to feed him with a spoon, or to do anything -else that denoted imbecility.... He has indeed done it very well, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -it is a foolish thing well done.” Percy says in the Memoir (p. 107): “The -subject of this dispute was long discussed in the public papers, which -discanted on the impropriety of attacking a man in his own house: and an -action was threatened for the assault: which was at length compromised”: -and here he leaves it, as we may well do.</p> - -<p>One other matter connected with “She Stoops to Conquer” I must -ask your permission to touch upon before I conclude. Four attempts were -made at an Epilogue for the play, and the Percy documents enable us for -the first time to understand the sequence of these. Two of them were -printed (not quite textually) in Vol. II of the Memoir of 1801, and Percy, -who set great store by them, complains to his correspondents that enough -credit was not given to him by the publishers for them. He told -Dr. Robert Anderson:</p> - -<p>“The Dr. had likewise given him two original Poems that had never -been printed. These are the two Epilogues printed in the second -Volume, viz: that spoken by Mrs. Bulkley and Miss Catley, and that -intended for Mrs. Bulkley. The latter [it] is said in a Note, was given -in Manuscript to Dr. Percy by the Author, but no such mention is made -of the former, tho’ it was also so given by him and delivered to the -Publishers in his own writing.”</p> - -<p>Percy was a little in doubt about the second of these Epilogues (which -in the edition of 1801 he cut down from 58 lines to 42), for he invited -George Steevens on 10 September, 1797, to ask Mrs. Bulkley if she -remembered for what play it was intended: “He [Goldsmith] gave it me -among a parcel of letters and papers, some written by himself, and some -addressed to him, but with not much explanation” (<i>Literary Illustrations</i>, -VII, 31). Steevens’ reply of 14 September, 1797, was in his usual caustic -vein: “The lady you would have interrogated ceased to be at least seven -years ago: and what would the public say could it be known that your -Lordship, a Protestant Bishop, was desirous to send your sober correspondents -into the other world a harlot-hunting?” (<i>Ibid</i>, 32).</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>It is a little surprising that the Bishop should not have at once -recognised its obvious associations with “She Stoops to Conquer,” in -view of the two lines at the end of the Epilogue:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“No high-life scenes, no sentiment: the creature</div> -<div class="verse">“Still stoops among the low to copy nature.”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>But all these points, in their way interesting and even absorbing, are rather -beyond the object with which I embarked upon this paper, viz.: to do -justice to the affectionate side of Goldsmith’s warm Irish nature by -bringing into relief the letters which, despite his repugnance to correspondence, -he from time to time addressed to members of his own family -with ardent and even pitiful appeals for news from Ireland. These -appeals, it is to be feared, had no satisfactory response from the recipients -of the letters which after their many adventures I have now had the -privilege of exhibiting to you, and which I think serve to illustrate the -truth of Dr. Johnson’s dictum: “Goldsmith was a man of such variety -of powers and such felicity of performance, that he always seemed to -do best that which he was doing: a man who had the art of being -minute without tediousness, and general without confusion; whose -language was copious without exuberance, exact without constraint and -easy without weakness.”</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">APPENDIX.</h2></div> - -<p class="center"><i>Biographical particulars as to the members of Oliver Goldsmith’s family, -partly from unpublished sources.</i></p> - - -<p>Oliver Goldsmith died on 4 April, 1774. Although there was some -talk of a biography of him being undertaken by Johnson, it appears to -have become a common understanding, soon after the death, amongst the -members of The Club and their associates that the work of collecting and -preparing the materials for the biography would be done by Thomas Percy. -At that time Percy had achieved a certain reputation in literary circles, -but was by no means the important person in the ecclesiastical sense that -he afterwards became. He was then mainly resident in London as -Chaplain and Secretary to the Duke of Northumberland and as one of the -Chaplains of the King. It was not until 1778 that he was made Dean -of Carlisle, from which position he was promoted in 1782 to the Bishopric -of Dromore in Ireland.</p> - -<p>Percy had already written out in his own hand a Memorandum -dictated to him by Goldsmith himself “one rainy day at Northumberland -House” (28 April, 1773) giving dates and many interesting particulars -relating to his life, and this Memorandum is still in existence. Too much -importance must not be attached to it. Percy no doubt regarded it as a -Memorandum only, which might prove useful under future conditions -that had not then arisen, and how much of it is Goldsmith and how much -Percy must for ever remain unknown. The Statement was communicated -to Johnson; not used by him: returned by his executors to the wrong -person (Malone), sent by him to Percy, and apparently not used textually -by him for the purpose of his Memoir of his friend. In any case, there -is not much in it about the members of Oliver’s family.</p> - -<p>Sir James Prior was ignorant of the existence of this Memorandum, -when preparing his <i>Life of Goldsmith</i> (Murray, 1837): but with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -praiseworthy carefulness, he set about whilst he was in Ireland in the -early part of the nineteenth century to dig up such particulars as he could -discover about Oliver’s parentage; and what he says concerning “the -Goldsmith Family” in his first Chapter is the fullest and most authoritative -history of the poet’s forebears that was capable of being written within -half a century of Goldsmith’s death and with the information at that time -available.</p> - -<p>It is not necessary for present purposes to go further back than Oliver’s -grandfather, whose name was Robert Goldsmith of Ballyoughter (not John, -as in Dr. Percy’s Statement). The following facts are known about this -ancestor of the poet.</p> - - -<h3>1. ROBERT GOLDSMITH OF BALLYOUGHTER.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Grandfather.)</p> - -<p>Robert, elder of two sons of the Revd. John Goldsmith, of Newton, Co. -Meath, and Jane Madden, of Donore, Co. Dublin, does not appear to have -gone to College or to have exercised any profession. He “married -Catherine, daughter of Thomas Crofton, D.D., Dean of Elphin, and settled -down at Ballyoughter, near the residence of his father-in-law” (Prior I, 5). -By his wife, “who enjoyed a moderate fortune, he had a family of thirteen -children, nine sons and four daughters.” Several of them died young. -John, the eldest son of Robert, “who had been educated at Trinity -College preparatory to studying for the bar, settled down on the family -property at Ballyoughter” (Prior I, 5). The second son Charles, who also -went to Trinity College, was the father of the poet (<i>see</i> § 2). One of the -daughters, Jane, married the Rev. Thomas Contarine of Oran (<i>see</i> § 4).</p> - - -<h3>2. THE REVD. CHARLES GOLDSMITH.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Father.)</p> - -<p>Charles Goldsmith entered Trinity College as a pensioner on the -16 June, 1707. He was described in the Register as born and educated -“prope Elphin,” as the son of Robert, and as aged 17. He was born -therefore in 1690. His earlier career is obscure, but in a family Bible he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -is described as “Charles Goldsmith of Ballyoughter” (the family residence) -and as “married to Mrs. Ann Jones ye 4th of May 1718” (Prior I, 14), -when therefore he was 28 years of age. “This union was not approved -by the friends of either: he was destitute of the means of providing for a -family, and the father of his wife having a son and three other daughters -to provide for, her portion was small” (Prior I, 7). Ann Jones was -daughter of the Revd. Oliver Jones of Smith Hill, master of the diocesan -school at Elphin, where Charles had received his preliminary education, -and where the attachment commenced. Her uncle, named Green, who -was rector of Kilkenny West, provided the young couple with a house -about six miles distant from himself, at a place called Pallas, in the -adjoining county of Longford. “Here they took up their abode, and -continued for a period of twelve years [1718 to 1730], Mr. Goldsmith -officiating partly in the church of his uncle, and partly in the parish in -which he resided.” At Pallas therefore five of their eight children -(including Oliver) were born: the other three were born at Lissoy, to -which the family removed in 1730, when Charles Goldsmith, by the death -of his wife’s uncle, succeeded to the Rectory of Kilkenny West.</p> - -<p>The family Bible referred to by Prior (I, 14) records the names and -dates of birth of the several children as under: <i>Margaret</i>, born 22 August, -1719 (of whom nothing seems to be known); <i>Catherine</i>, born 13 January, -1721, married to Daniel Hodson (<i>see</i> § 5); <i>Jane</i>, born 9 February, 17<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> -(<i>see</i> § 6); <i>Henry</i>, born 9 February, 17<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> (<i>see</i> § 7); <i>Oliver</i>, born 10 -November, 1728; <i>Maurice</i>, born 7 July, 1736 (<i>see</i> § 11); <i>Charles</i>, born -16 August, 1737 (<i>see</i> § 12); <i>John</i>, 1740 (to whom there is only the -briefest reference in Oliver’s letter to his uncle Contarine written from -Edinburgh at the close of 1753 and first printed by Prior in 1837 -(I, 154): “How is my poor Jack Goldsmith? I fear his disorder is of -such a nature he won’t easily recover.” He is said by Percy (MS. -statement) to have “died young <i>aet.</i> 12.”)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>The loveable character of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith has been -depicted for all time in incomparable language in his wayward son’s works. -He is the father of “the man in black” of “the Citizen of the World,” -the preacher in “The Deserted Village” and Dr. Primrose in “the Vicar -of Wakefield.” He died suddenly early in 1747 in the fifty-seventh year -of his age (Prior I, 73), the induction of his successor, the Revd. Mr. -Wynne, taking place in March of that year.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“Remote from towns he ran his goodly race</div> -<div class="verse">Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change, his place.”</div> -</div></div> - - -<h3>3. ANN GOLDSMITH, <i>née</i> JONES.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Mother.)</p> - -<p>The death of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith in 1747 made a considerable -change for the worse in the fortunes of his widow and her -children.</p> - -<p>“The wealth of the family, never great or well husbanded, necessarily -suffered a serious diminution: the means of the widow were little more -than sufficient to provide the necessaries of life for the other branches of -the family: remittances to Oliver therefore ceased, and his prospects -became darker than ever” (Prior I, 73, 74).</p> - -<p>Ann Goldsmith had to remove in her straitened circumstances to a -cottage at Ballymahon, and there Oliver seems to have idled away his time -between 1749 to 1751, when he drifted off with the intention of going to -America. Probably things were not made very comfortable for him at -home. Anyhow the mother appears to have been disgusted and disappointed -at his waywardness, and spoke to him sharply when he returned -penniless. He does not seem to have again resided at Ballymahon, but -to have gone to stay with his brother Henry, and afterwards with his -constant friend and benefactor, Uncle Contarine, before he went off to -Edinburgh, never to see his mother again. When writing from the -Scottish capital on 16 September, 1753, to his boon companion, Robert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -Bryanton of Ballymahon, Oliver says in a postscript: “Give my service to -my mother if you see her: for as you express it in Ireland, I have a -sneaking kindness for her still.” After his return from his Continental -wanderings, he writes twice to his brother-in-law Daniel Hodson about his -mother. On 27 December, 1757, he says: “My mother too has lost -Pallas! My dear Sir, these things give me real uneasiness, and I should -wish to redress them.” And in November, 1758, he writes to Hodson: -“Pray tell me how my mother is since she will not gratify me herself and -tell me if in anything I can be immediately serviceable to her.” (This -and other similar phrases in the letters of 1757 and 1758 are omitted from -the 1801 publication as relating to “private family affairs.”) In Oliver’s -letter to his brother Henry of February, 1758, he says: “My mother I -am informed is almost blind: even tho I had the utmost inclination to -return home, I could not behold her in distress without a capacity of -relieving her from it, it would be too much to add to my present splenetic -habit.”</p> - -<p>Later still in January, 1770, Oliver begs his brother Maurice to give -him particulars about the family: “Tell me about my mother, my brother -Hodson and his son, ... what is become of them, where they live and -what they do.” Mrs. Goldsmith died in Ireland later in the same year, -and in Mr. William Filby’s tailor’s bills against Goldsmith is the entry -of £5:12:0 for “a suit of mourning” (doubtless for her) dated -8 September, 1770 (Prior I, 233).</p> - - -<h3>4. THE CONTARINES.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin.)</p> - -<p>As already stated, one of the daughters of Robert Goldsmith named -Jane married the Revd. Thomas Contarine, Vicar of Oran. She bore him -a daughter Jane, the playmate of Oliver’s childhood, and died in her -sixty-third year on the 12 June, 1744 (Prior I, 55, note). “Uncle -Contarine” was the best, kindest and most consistent friend of Oliver -Goldsmith in his boyhood and student days; and Oliver had a deep sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -of gratitude to him. He wrote to Contarine two letters from Edinburgh -in 1753 (printed in Prior I, 145 and 154), and a third letter from Leyden -in 1754, which is fortunately preserved.</p> - -<p>The following incident, illustrative of Oliver’s affection for his generous -uncle, is copied into the Memoir of 1801 (page 33) from Percy’s own -manuscript. Oliver had borrowed some money from an Irish friend at -Leyden “with which he determined to quit Holland and to visit the -adjacent countries. But unfortunately his curiosity led him to view a -garden, where the choicest flowers were reared for sale. Poor Goldsmith, -recollecting that his uncle was an admirer of such rarities, without -reflecting on the reduced state of his own finances, was tempted to -purchase some of these costly flower roots to be sent as a present to -Ireland, and thereby left himself so little cash that he is said to have -set out on his travels with only one clean shirt and no money in his -pocket.”</p> - -<p>Later Oliver wrote to Contarine’s daughter, Mrs. Lawder, on 15 -August, 1758, from the Temple Exchange Coffee House an affectionate -letter apologising for his long silence, but explaining that he wrote to -Kilmore from Leyden, Louvain and Rouen and received no answer, and -referring thus to his uncle: “he is no more that soul of fire as when I -once knew him. His mind was too active an inhabitant not to disorder -the feeble mansion of its abode, for the richest jewels soonest wear their -settings. Yet who but a fool would lament his condition, he now forgets -the calamities of life, perhaps indulgent heaven has given him a foretaste -of that tranquillity here which he so well deserves hereafter.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Contarine died a few months after the date of this letter, aged -about 74, and left Oliver a legacy of £15, which he eventually made over -to his impecunious brother Maurice. In announcing this decision (in -January, 1770) Oliver says to Maurice: “The kindness of that good couple -to our poor shattered family demands our sincerest gratitude, and though -they have almost forgot me yet if good things at last arrive, I hope one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -day to return, and encrease their good humour by adding to my own. I -have sent my cousin Jenny [Mrs. Lawder] a miniature picture of myself as -I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer.”</p> - -<p>Contarine’s daughter Jane married James Lawder, a well-to-do resident -of Kilmore, near Carrick on Shannon. To her Oliver addressed on -15 August, 1758, the affectionate letter already quoted dwelling on the -past and signing himself “Your affectionate and obliged Kinsman.” It -seems to have provoked no reply.</p> - -<p>The end of the Lawders was tragic. The husband was treacherously -murdered by his servants and labourers, who carried off the plate in the -house and about £300 in money. For this crime no less than six of -them were executed. The wife, who narrowly escaped being murdered -also, died in Dublin about 1790 (Prior I, 130, note).</p> - - -<h3>5. CATHERINE GOLDSMITH (MRS. DANIEL HODSON).</h3> - -<p class="center">(Sister of Oliver.)</p> - -<p>Catherine was born 13 January, 1721. It was her private marriage -with Daniel Hodson, “the son of a gentleman of good family residing at -St. John’s near Athlone,” who was at the time of the engagement a pupil of -Henry Goldsmith, that led to Oliver’s entering Trinity College as a sizar -instead of as a pensioner like Henry. Her father, the Revd. Charles -Goldsmith, was greatly indignant at this marriage, and in order to give his -daughter a marriage portion of £400, sacrificed his tithes and rented land.</p> - -<p>To his brother-in-law Hodson, Oliver wrote two very cordial letters on -27 December, 1757, and November, 1758, the second containing a -paragraph: “Dear Sister, I wrote to Kilmore (the residence of the Lawders). -I wish you would let me know how that family stands affected with regard -to me.” It is curious that in Oliver’s letter to Maurice of January, 1770, -he does not ask after his sister Catherine, though he enquires about “my -mother, my brother Hodson and his son, my brother Harry’s son and -daughter” and other members of the family. After Oliver’s death,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -however, Catherine Hodson, appealed to by Maurice, wrote out a full and -very sympathetic account, running to twelve foolscap pages, of Oliver’s -youthful adventures, terminating with his being sent to Edinburgh in 1753 -“for the studdy of Physick. From this date I am a stranger to what -happened him: he wrote severall letters to his friends from Switzerland, -Germany and Italy.”</p> - -<p>With reference to Oliver’s enquiry quoted above as to “my Brother -Hodson and his son,” it may be mentioned that the poet befriended this -nephew in London in 1772 to the extent of allowing him to run up a bill -for £35:3:0 with his tailor William Filby. It is to be feared this bill -was still unpaid at Oliver’s decease (Forster II, 173).</p> - - -<h3>6. JANE GOLDSMITH, AFTERWARDS JOHNSON.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Born 9 February, 1722. Sister of Oliver.)</p> - -<p>As the family Bible entries from which were copied into Prior’s <i>Life</i> -(I, 14) gave as the date of the births of Henry and Jane Goldsmith -the same day 9 February, 17— (leaf torn), Forster surmised and with -much plausibility that they were twins, born on the 9 February, 1722 -(I, 9). Jane married one Johnson, a farmer at Athlone, and appears to -have written to Oliver in 1769 about her impoverished condition, which -Oliver in his letter to Maurice of January, 1770, regrets his inability -to relieve.</p> - - -<h3>7. THE REVD. HENRY GOLDSMITH.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Elder Brother.)</p> - -<p>Very little is known about the eldest son of the Revd. Charles -Goldsmith, Henry, who was born at Pallas on the 9 February, 1722 -(Prior I, 14). He was educated at Dr. Neligan’s school at Elphin, afterwards -matriculating at Trinity College, Dublin, on 4 May, 1741 (Prior -I, 34, note). He was elected a scholar on Trinity Monday, 1743: “but -returning home in the succeeding vacation, flushed probably with his -recent triumph, he indulged a youthful passion and married” (Prior I, 35).</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>All that the Percy Memoir of 1801 (I, 3) says about Henry is: “Of his -eldest son the Revd. Henry Goldsmith, to whom his brother dedicated -<i>The Traveller</i>, their father had formed the most sanguine hopes, as he -had distinguished himself both at school and at College, but he unfortunately -married at the early age of nineteen: which confined him to -a Curacy, and prevented him rising to preferment in the Church.” As -he was born at Pallas in February, 1722, Henry must, if this statement -be accurate, have become a married man in 1741, about the time he -matriculated at Trinity College. There is evidently inaccuracy somewhere -as to Henry’s age, and it may be doubted whether his marriage took -place before or after his election as a scholar of his College on Trinity -Monday, 1743. From some guarded words used by Prior (the most -painstaking investigator into the family history) it is possible the marriage -was a secret one, as Prior suggests that when it took place “he must have -been three years older [than stated above], or have formed this -connexion previous to entering the University. To some men this tie -becomes a stimulus to exertion: to others it seems a clog upon every -effort at rising in life” (I, 35). Prior seems to decide that in Henry’s -case it was a clog. He speaks of Henry having “indulged a youthful -passion and married,” and continues shortly afterwards: “Finding -residence in College no longer eligible, the advantages of his scholarship -were sacrificed: he retired, as appears from the college books, to the -country: established a school in his father’s neighbourhood: and in this -occupation added to that of curate at ‘forty pounds a year,’ though -possessed of talents and character, he passed the remainder of life.” -(Prior I, 35.)</p> - -<p>It is nowhere very clearly stated, that it would seem that Henry acted -as curate to his father at Kilkenny West, and perhaps after his father’s -death in 1747 he continued in office under the new Rector, the Revd. -Mr. Wynne (Prior I, 73). John Forster says (I, 427): “In his early life -Dr. Strean succeeded Henry Goldsmith in the curacy of Kilkenny West, -which the latter occupied at the period of his death (1768) and as he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -careful to tell us, in its emoluments of £40 a year, which was not only his -salary but continued to be the same when I [Strean] a successor, was -appointed to that parish.”</p> - -<p>The two brothers Henry and Oliver had a strong and abiding affection -for one another. Oliver had corresponded with his brother whilst he was -abroad, though none of his letters have been preserved. Part of <i>The -Traveller</i> had been sent to Henry from Switzerland, and when it was -completed and published at the end of 1764, the poem was dedicated to -him. The opening paragraph contained this sentence: “It will throw a -light upon many parts of it when the reader understands that it is -addressed to a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to -happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year.” And -the opening lines of the poem itself contain the familiar phrase:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see,</div> -<div class="verse">“My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee:</div> -<div class="verse">“Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain</div> -<div class="verse">“And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Later on there is the well-known description of the village preacher:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“A man he was to all the country dear,</div> -<div class="verse">“And passing rich with forty pounds a year.”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>There is only one letter from Oliver to Henry known to exist: that -addressed “about 1759” to Henry at “Lowfield, near Ballymore in -Westmeath Ireland” seeking his assistance in the disposal of copies of -his book on “Polite learning” describing his own physical looks, giving -Henry advice as to the education of his son, asking about his mother and -other members of the family, and ending up: “by telling you what you -very well know already, that I am your most affectionate friend and brother -Oliver Goldsmith.”</p> - -<p>Henry was the subject of Oliver’s solicitude when he was granted an -interview with the Earl of Northumberland (Dr. Percy’s friend) who was -about to proceed to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. We owe the report of -this interview to the unsympathetic pen of Sir John Hawkins in his <i>Life of</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -<i>Johnson</i> (p. 419). In answer to the Earl’s remark that he was going to -Ireland and hearing that Goldsmith was a native of that country he would -be glad to do him any kindness, Oliver is made to reply: “I would say -nothing but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of -help.” Hawkins’ sour comment was: “thus did this idiot in the affairs of -the world trifle with his fortunes and put back the hand that was held out -to assist him.”</p> - -<p>The Revd. Henry Goldsmith died at Athlone at the end of May, 1768, -at the age of forty-five. A suit of mourning for him ordered of Oliver’s -tailor William Filby cost £5:12:6 (Forster II, 113). The brother -seems to have at once written a letter of affectionate sympathy with the -family—probably to the widow, and to his nephew Henry he sent a -separate letter which has only just come to light in North America, having -doubtless been preserved till now by descendants of the original recipient. -It is now the property of Mr. William Harris Arnold of Nutley, New -Jersey, to whose kindness I owe permission for its reproduction:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="right">London, June 7th, 1768.</p> - -<p>My dear Henry,</p> - -<p>Your dear father’s death has afflicted me deeply. The news of this dreadful -event only reached me yesterday and though I have already sent my love and condolences -in a letter which you will see I pen this further line to my dear Nephew to express the -hope that you and your Brother, young as you both are, will bear yourselves as the sons -of such a man should. As to your own future I shall not rest until I hit upon some -means of serving you; and it may be that through the influence of some of my friends -here you may procure a situation suited to your talents.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile attend diligently to your studies, neglect nothing that can advance your -interest when an opening occurs. Are you still inclined towards a military career? -That would necessitate, besides a certain temper and constitution, a considerable sum -of ready money. Something, however, might be managed abroad—in the Indies or -in America.</p> - -<p>Let me hear from you, my dear Henry, and with much love to you both</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright2">Believe me,</span><br /> -<span class="indentright">Your affectionate Uncle,</span><br /> -Oliver Goldsmith.</p> - -<p>Mr. Henry Goldsmith<br /> -<span class="indent">In Care of Mrs. Hodson,</span><br /> -<span class="indent2">Athlone,</span><br /> -<span class="indent3">Ireland.</span></p></blockquote> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>I find no mention whatever in any document (published or unpublished) -that I have come across of a second son of the Revd. Henry. Oliver at -the time of his brother’s death was at work on the <i>Deserted Village</i> at a -summer retreat in a cottage eight miles from the Edgware Road (Forster -II, 124), was visited there in May, 1768, by Cooke, who marks the date -as exactly two years before the poem appeared in print (May, 1770), and -tells us that the writing of it, and its elaborate revision, extended over the -whole interval of twenty-four months.</p> - -<p>Is it permissible to suggest that Oliver, with his head full of other -things, was a little dubious about the sex of the other child of his brother, -and spoke of a son where he should have said daughter? Writing to his -brother Maurice in January, 1770, with anxious enquiries about the several -members of the family, Oliver says: “Tell me about my mother, my brother -Hodson and his son: <i>my brother Harry’s son and daughter</i>, my sister -Johnson, the family of Ballyoughter, what is become of them, where they -live and how they do. You talked of being my only brother, I don’t -understand you—Where is Charles?” (<i>Memoir</i>, p. 89.)</p> - -<p>Here it will be observed, Oliver makes tender enquiries after Henry’s -“son and daughter.” He says nothing of the widow or of a second son. -In the only letter of Oliver’s to his brother that is now extant, ascribed by -Percy to “about 1759,” Oliver thus refers to the son: “The reasons you -have given me for breeding your son a scholar are judicious and -convincing.... Preach then my dear Sir, to your son not the excellence -of human nature nor the disrespect of riches, but endeavour to teach him -thrift and economy. Let his poor wandering Uncle’s example be placed -in his eyes. I had learned from books to love virtue, before I was taught -from experience the necessity of being selfish.”</p> - -<p>I quote from the original holograph letter, not from the somewhat -bowdlerised version of it that Percy printed in the <i>Memoir</i> of 1801, and -that has since been copied in all subsequent biographies.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>It remains therefore to consider what happened to those whom Henry -left behind him in 1768 of whom there is any record. There was a widow, -of whose parentage and maiden name, or of the circumstances of her -widowhood nothing seems to be known, his son Henry, and his daughter -Catherine.</p> - - -<h3>8. HENRY GOLDSMITH’S WIDOW.</h3> - -<p>It was in all probability Mrs. Henry Goldsmith of whom Johnson wrote -to George Steevens on 25 February, 1777, as recorded by Boswell in -Volume III, Chapter III:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>“Mr. Steevens ... joined Dr. Johnson in Kind assistance to a female relation of -Dr. Goldsmith, and desired that on her return to Ireland she would procure authentic -particulars of the life of her relation. Concerning her is the following letter:</p> - -<p class="right"> -<span class="indentright">“To George Steevens Esq.</span><br /> - -“February 25th 1777.</p> - -<p>“Dear Sir,</p> - -<p>“You will be glad to hear that from Mrs. Goldsmith whom we lamented as -drowned, I have received a letter full of gratitude to us all, with promises to make the -enquiries which we recommended to her. You will tell the good news,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright3">“I am, Sir,</span><br /> - -<span class="indentright">“Your most etc.</span><br /> - -“Sam Johnson.”</p></blockquote> - -<p>Prior (II, 562) expands this incident, assigning it definitely to the -widow of the Revd. Henry, but gives no new facts, except to add that -“being but slenderly provided for, she accepted the situation of Matron -to the Meath Infirmary at Navan.”</p> - - -<h3>9. HENRY, SON OF THE REVD. HENRY GOLDSMITH.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Nephew.)</p> - -<p>Henry, the son, Prior describes as “distinguished for spirit, intelligence -and personal beauty.... A commission being obtained for him in the -army, he quitted Ireland for North America about the year 1782.” A -constant friend and correspondent of his, the Revd. Thomas Handcock -wrote on 7 October, 1799 (Prior II, 564) that Henry had been a lieutenant -in the 54th Regiment, and that “with an uncommon flow of spirits (he)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -possesses a large portion of his uncle’s genius.” He married an American -lady from Rhode Island and “after the peace settled with her somewhere -in Nova Scotia.”</p> - -<p>“He plunged through unheard of distresses and difficulties until very -lately, when accident made our young Prince, the Duke of Kent, -acquainted with his person and history: and His Royal Highness lost -no time in raising him, a wife and ten children, considerably above want, -as I learn by a letter from Goldsmith within these last six weeks. I -had ... received his rent and managed his affairs, and in his distresses -he often urged me to sell his interest in the Deserted Village [Lissoy] -which I continued to avoid, to his present very great satisfaction.”</p> - -<p>The particular way in which Henry Goldsmith’s needs were brought -under the notice of the Duke of Kent is not recorded, but His Royal -Highness had been sent to Canada in 1791, and was Commander-in-Chief -of the forces in British North America in 1799-1800. What Mr. -Handcock says in his letter is confirmed by an unpublished letter written -by Henry’s sister Catherine to Bishop Percy on 6 January, 1802, apropos -of her uncle Charles’ statement to the Bishop that “the name is extinct -except in his family”:</p> - -<p>“He never considered,” said she, “that I had cousins in this country -that had male heirs, as also a much lov’d brother now residing at Halifax -in North America, who has ten children, and has either four or five sons -lawfully by an amiable wife. From my brother’s account, his Children -possess uncommon abilities. His eldest son Henry he intends for the -Bar: his second son is a midshipman, and his third son Oliver, he -mention’d in a letter to me he would have educated in Ireland. The -Duke of Kent, my brother’s particular Patron and Friend, has got him -the place of Assistant Engineer at Halifax, and means to provide for him -in a better way when opportunity offers.”</p> - -<p>A letter by Henry Goldsmith to a kinsman dated 20 March, 1808, -brings the story of this Nova Scotian family up to a somewhat later date.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>“I am fixed here in the Commissariat Department and have a family -of nine children, five sons and four daughters. The eldest Henry, -follows the profession of the law: Hugh Colvill is I hope ere this, a -lieutenant in the Navy: Oliver is with a merchant at Boston: Charles -is a midshipman on this station, and Benjamin a boy. The daughters -Ann, Catherine, Eliza and Jane are at home with me, and promise to be -all I wish them.” (Prior II, 568.)</p> - -<p>Hugh Colvill Goldsmith (1789-1841) referred to in his father’s letter, -merits a passing mention as being the young sailor who on 8 April, -1824, shocked Cornish susceptibilities by displacing the famous rocking -Logan Stone at the Land’s End, and had to arrange for its replacement -later in that year (29 October to 2 November) in its original position, -which as the weight of the stone is variously given as 60 to 80 tons, was -no easy matter. Doubtless because of this foolhardy exploit, he has a -niche in the <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>, being in fact the only -member of the Goldsmith family other than the poet who is thus honoured. -He was born at St. Andrews, New Brunswick, on 2 April, 1789, and -was at the time of the Logan Rock incident a Naval Lieutenant in -command of the “Nimble” revenue cutter off the coast of Cornwall. He -was never promoted, and died at sea off St. Thomas in the West Indies -on 8 October, 1841. An incidental reference to Charles Goldsmith (also -referred to in his father’s letter of 1808 as a midshipman) shows that he -was afterwards a Commander in the Navy. His dates are 1795-1854.</p> - - -<h3>10. CATHERINE, DAUGHTER OF THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Niece.)</p> - -<p>The facts as to the daughter of Henry Goldsmith are easier to piece -together, as Bishop Percy drew up when in London in July, 1800, a -memorandum as to her case which has fortunately been preserved in -manuscript, and gives incidentally some particulars as to other members -of the Goldsmith family.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>There are a number of pitiful letters from this poor little lonely and -suffering soul addressed to the Bishop at dates ranging from 1794 to -March, 1803, with drafts of two of the Bishop’s replies, mercifully modified -before despatch, referring to his monetary advances already made to her, -and speaking of the “constant source of plague and vexation” which the -question of the publication of the <i>Memoir</i> had been to him. The end -came in July, 1803, when one McDonnell wrote to the Bishop’s secretary -that Catherine had died “after a painful illness to which her dependant -and helpless situation must have greatly contributed.” McDonnell had -seen to her being decently buried, and thought 8 or 9 guineas would -reimburse the total cost. No doubt the Bishop sent him this.</p> - - -<h3>11. MAURICE GOLDSMITH.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Brother.)</p> - -<p>Maurice, the next child of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith after Oliver, -was born on 7 July, 1736, and was followed a year later (16 August, 1737) -by Charles, and in 1740 by a fourth son John. Maurice was not therefore, -as stated erroneously in a note on page 86 of the Percy <i>Memoir</i> “our -poet’s youngest brother.” He first emerges from obscurity early in 1770, -when he was in his thirty-fourth year, and wrote to Oliver a letter from the -Lawder’s house at Kilmore asking for assistance. Oliver’s reply has -fortunately been preserved. It bears no date, but Percy ascribes it to -“January 1770,” which is about right, as endorsed upon it is Maurice’s -receipt dated 4 February, 1770, £15, the amount of a legacy left by -Uncle Contarine to Oliver which he made over to his brother (I, 89).</p> - -<p>According to Prior (II, 519), Sir Joshua Reynolds undertook after the -death of the poet on 4 April, 1774, “to superintend his affairs until the -arrival from Ireland of such of his relatives as should be authorised to -receive them.” For answer Maurice Goldsmith appeared in London “a -plain unlettered man, too homely it seems in appearance and manners<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -to command much consideration from his late brother’s accomplished -friends” (Prior II, 524). The still surviving Mrs. Gwyn (the “Jessamy -Bride”) told Prior long years after that:</p> - -<p>“Being in a small party in the house of Sir Joshua when the latter was -summoned downstairs, he returned after a considerable absence and -whispered her that he had been below with Goldsmith’s brother, but -thinking a little beer or spirits there better adapted to his taste than tea -in the drawing room, he had entertained him in what he considered the -most appropriate manner. She, with the usual kindness of her sex, -thought his behaviour scarcely becoming in the President to so near a -relative of his departed friend.” (II, 524.)</p> - -<p>Doubtless it was at this time that Sir Joshua gave Maurice the -subjoined (undated) note of introduction to the “Revd. Dr. Percy -Northumberland House” still preserved amongst the Percy papers:</p> - -<p>“Sir Joshua Reynolds’s compliments and begs leave to introduce to -Dr. Percy Mr. Goldsmith brother of his late friend Dr. Goldsmith.”</p> - -<p>As the next of kin, Maurice was entitled to administer his brother’s -affairs, and there is at Somerset House the formal Probate granted on -28 June, 1774, to “Maurice Goldsmith, the natural and lawful brother and -next of kin to the said deceased.” As Oliver died in debt, there was -nothing for Maurice to administer or receive, and he left London on -10 June, 1774, writing to Mr. Hawes, the apothecary who attended his -brother, his “most sincere thanks for your kind behaviour to me since my -arrival here,” and for his “care, assiduity and diligence with respect to -my brother Doctor Goldsmith.”</p> - -<p>No doubt Percy improved the occasion, when Maurice came to see him -at Northumberland House with Sir Joshua’s note of introduction in his -pocket, by giving him some sound advice, with perhaps a cash contribution -on account, and certainly with an admonition to collect all his brother’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -letters to members of the family in Ireland that he could manage to pick -up. For on 15 July, 1776, Maurice wrote to Percy as under:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="right">July 15, 1776.</p> - -<p>Revd. Sir,</p> - -<p>When I last had the honour of seeing you at your Chambers in Northumberland -House you most kindly told me you wod willingly serve me, I have Sir according to -your Order collected in this Country all the Letters and a few anecdotes of my Brother, -the late Dr. Goldsmith that I cod procure which I assure you Sir are entirely Jenuine, -the Anecdotes wrote by his Sister who ware both inseperable Companions in their youth.</p> - -<p>I am much concernd that two of these Letters which I send are not entirely Legibl -and that it will cost som pains to make them and the Memoirs fitt for the press; So -Dr Sir to your goodness and protection I commit them thoroughly satisfied you will -serve the Brother of a Man who really lovd and Esteemd you.</p> - -<p>I can assure you Sir I have gon several Miles to collect them and as my circumstances -at present are not very affluent a small assistance wod be gratefully accepted, shd any -accrue from these papers wich with what my good Friend Sr. Joshua Reynolds and -Mr. Garrick promisd to supply, will not be deemd I hope unworthy of yr publication -which you and Sir Joshua told me you wod get affected.</p> - -<p>I am Sir with the greatest respect Sir your verry Obet. Humble Servant</p> - -<p class="right">Maurice Goldsmith</p> - -<p>I hope you will do me the honour to let me know if you receivd. these by directing -to me at Charles Town near Elphin Ireland.</p></blockquote> - -<p>There is nothing to show that anything definite followed this appeal for -money: and perhaps on that account, Maurice next addressed himself to -Dr. Johnson, to whom he wrote at Bolt Court an undated letter bearing -the Elphin post-mark as under:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><span class="indent">“To Doctor Johnson at his house in Bolt Court Fleet Street London.</span></p> - -<p>“I lately had the Honour to receive a letter from my good Friend the Revd. -Docr. Percy, who from som Papers I had sent him did intend writing the life of the -Late Docr. Goldsmith: he tells me that from the esteem you have had for the poor -Docr. you have determind to take the work under your protection and that you had -also promised to use your interest with the booksellers to let one impression be printed -of all his poetical writings.... Your taking the trouble to write and set of(f) the -life of the Docr. by your able judicious and highly esteemed pen will be a lasting -honour to his memory and to his Family.”</p></blockquote> - -<p>In a note to the print of Oliver’s letter to Maurice of “January 1770,” -Percy gives the following further information about Maurice (p. 86).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -“Having been bred to no business, he upon some occasion complained to -our bard, that he found it difficult to live like a gentleman, on which -Oliver begged he would, without delay, quit so unprofitable a trade and -betake himself to some handycraft employment. Maurice wisely took the -hint, and bound himself apprentice to a cabinet maker. He had a shop in -Dublin, when the Duke of Rutland was Lord Lieutenant: who at the -instance of Mr. Orde, then principal secretary of state (now Lord Bolton) -out of regard to his brother’s memory, made him an inspector of the -licences in that city. He was also appointed mace-bearer on the erection -of the Royal Irish Academy: both of them places very compatible with his -business. In the former he gave proof of great integrity by detecting a -fraud committed on the revenue in his department, by which probably he -might himself have profited, if he had not been a man of principle. He -died without issue, about seven years ago.”</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, Maurice died early in the winter of 1792-3, as -appears from a letter written by Dr. Thomas Campbell, who first attempted -Oliver’s biography, to the Bishop of Dromore—then in London—on 12 -June, 1793 (Nichols’ <i>Literary Illustrations</i>, VII, 790). Campbell says: -“Alas! poor Maurice, He is to receive no comfort from your Lordship’s -labours in his behalf. He departed from a miserable life early last winter, -and luckily has left no children: but he has left a widow, and faith a very -nice one, who called on me one of the few days I spent in Dublin after -Christmas, so that you will not want claimants.”</p> - -<p>The numerous letters from Maurice to the Bishop which have been -preserved appear to show that he had really made sustained efforts to -collect in Ireland such of the original letters written by Oliver to his -relatives as were procurable. One such letter, and that of the greatest -interest, viz.: the letter written to Uncle Contarine from Leyden in 1754 -was not retrieved until nine years after the letter of 15 July, 1776, already -quoted, for Maurice writes to the Bishop on 9 June, 1785, “I send your -Lordship a letter from my brother to his Uncle Contarine dated from Lydon.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>Vol. VIII of Nichols’ <i>Literary Illustrations</i> (published in 1858) -contains at pp. 236-240, extracts from correspondence between the Bishop -and Edmund Malone from which it appears that on 16 June, 1785, Percy -was urging that the Members of the Club (of which Oliver was an original -Member) should show “our regard for the departed Bard by relieving his -only brother, and so far as I hear, the only one of his family that wants -relief.” (This was by no means the case, as Percy was afterwards to learn -by bitter experience.) He wrote again to Malone on 17 October, 1786, -“I must entreat you to exert all your influence among the gentlemen of -The Club, and particularly urge it on Sir Joshua Reynolds, to procure -subscriptions for the relief of poor Maurice Goldsmith, who is suffering -great penury and distress being not only poor but very unhealthy.... -A guinea a piece from the members of the Club would be a great -relief to him.”</p> - -<p>Maurice’s subsequent appointment in 1787 as the Mace-bearer to the -Royal Irish Academy and his place in the Licence Office appears to have -eased somewhat the final years of his chequered life, but when he died in -1792, a new appeal for the Bishop’s help came from his widow, Esther -Goldsmith.</p> - - -<h3>11<i>a</i>. ESTHER GOLDSMITH, WIDOW OF MAURICE.</h3> - -<p>All that is known about her is that she is described in a Petition to the -Lord Lieutenant (the draft of which in Percy’s writing was left amongst his -papers) as “the daughter of a respectable clergyman,” and as “left wholly -destitute” by the death of her husband Maurice Goldsmith. She got -various grants from a fund in the gift of the Lord Lieutenant known as the -Concordatum, and on the last page of Prior’s <i>Life</i> (Vol. II, 576) is a letter -from her dated Rushport, Elphin, 19 June, 1793, to Mr. J. C. Walker -asking his influence in favour of her appointment as housekeeper to the -Royal Irish Academy.</p> - -<p>There are two unpublished later letters (1794) from Rushport to Bishop -Percy, in one of which Esther wants to know about the subscription to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -<i>Memoir</i>, and in the other she thanks the Bishop for £15 which she had -received from the Concordatum Fund. A later letter dated 17 October, -1801, from Catherine, daughter of the Revd. Henry Goldsmith, to the -Bishop seems to show that Esther had remarried. “She thinks she is as -well entitled to the money arising from the publication of my Uncle’s -works as I am, but there I must beg leave to differ in opinion with her.” -Catherine gives some more particulars which she thinks the Bishop ought -to know, but “if Mrs. Goldsmith knew the information came to your -Lordship through me, ’twou’d bring her tongue upon me, which she can -use well.”</p> - - -<h3>12. CHARLES GOLDSMITH.</h3> - -<p class="center">(Oliver’s Brother.)</p> - -<p>Charles Goldsmith (born 1717, died 1805) the youngest but one of the -Revd. Charles Goldsmith’s children, comes on the scene earlier than the -others. Encouraged by the accounts which had reached Ireland of his -brother Oliver’s arrival in England and growing literary fame, he ventured -to the Metropolis in the year 1757, and as Northcote says in his <i>Life of -Reynolds</i> (I, 332-3): “Having heard of his brother Noll mixing in the -first society in London, he took it for granted that his fortune was made, -and that he could soon make a brother’s also: he therefore left home -without notice: but soon found, on his arrival in London, that the picture -he had formed of his brother’s situation was too highly coloured, that Noll -could not introduce him to his great friends, and in fact that, although out -of a jail, he was often out of a lodging.”</p> - -<p>The garret where Goldsmith then wrote and slept is supposed to have -been one of the courts near Salisbury Square. His letters were addressed -from the neighbouring Temple-exchange coffee-house near Temple Bar, -and the secret of the lodging is said to have been won from the coffee-house -waiter “George” to whom Charles Goldsmith confided his -relationship. (Forster I, 124.)</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>Thus disappointed, Charles quitted London in a few days, suddenly -and secretly as he had entered it, “in a humble capacity it is said, for -Jamaica”: whence says Forster (I, 125) “he did not return till after four-and-thirty -years to tell this anecdote, and to be described by Malone as not -a little like his celebrated brother in person, speech and manner.”</p> - -<p>When Charles came back to this country in 1791 it was to arrange for -his ultimate settlement with his family in England: but after the peace of -Amiens (1802), he sold his house, and with his wife (a Creole), a daughter -and a son named Oliver (born in England), migrated to the South of -France. In consequence of Buonaparte’s order for detaining British -subjects, he again returned to England in 1803 by way of Holland, much -reduced in circumstances, and died about 1805 at humble lodgings in -Ossulston Street, Somers Town.</p> - -<p>In an original letter of Charles himself, dated 2 September, 1795, in the -Percy bundle of Goldsmithiana, he says specifically: “I paid in 1791 a -visit to my native country: on my arrival I found the greatest part of my -relations and old friends had paid the debt of Nature: my brother Maurice -remained: he gave me a pleasing account of the great benefits you had -been pleased to bestow on him.” As Maurice had died, Charles put in a -plea for help for himself in view of the necessity of supporting “a wife and -five children.” These were of course the offspring of his Jamaica marriage -with a Creole, and Charles said nothing about any former marriage. Percy -is not known to have answered the letter: but on 8 December, 1801, -Charles made another appeal. Before answering this the Bishop made -some cautious enquiries of another member of the family, Catherine, -daughter of the Revd. Henry, who was already (since 1794) a candidate -for his charity. She replied on 28 December, 1801, that “there are some -parts of his [Charles’] letter true, and many others not so. He is indeed a -most delightful companion, abounds with wit and humour, and is perfectly -the gentleman, but he does not possess the steadiness or benevolent heart -that my much respected father or Uncle Oliver did. At the same time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -I think he has a much better claim than my Uncle Maurice’s widow, for -she was left a very handsome fortune of near two hundred a year, and more -than a thousand pounds in ready money. I think she has no title at all -to receive anything from the sale of the Poems.” Later, Catherine wrote -again to the Bishop on 6 January, 1802, saying she had information that -her Uncle (Charles) “had a great deal of money in the Funds, that he -had some children and the most of them natural children. I assure you, -my Lord, he has a great deal of art and duplicity.” Percy wrote Charles -in 1802 some sort of letter, which the latter says he never received. This -was very possibly the case, in view of his migration to France after the -peace of Amiens.</p> - -<p>Through the exertions of Edmund Malone, Charles was discovered to -be back in London, and he wrote to the Bishop in 1803 some details of -his experiences in France, following this up later in 1804 with a fuller -statement which is very readable and quite interesting.</p> - -<p>The last letter preserved from Charles Goldsmith is dated 24 March, -1805, and is in a shaky hand, saying he is afraid “my poor little son Oliver -will soon be left fatherless and without a friend.” Probably Charles died -soon after, and according to the letter of a neighbour, Mr. R. C. Roffe, -dated 12 February, 1821, “almost in a state of second childhood. His -wife, with a son (Oliver) he had by her in England, went to the West -Indies”: and according to a quotation given by Prior (II, 574) from a -Jamaica newspaper, this Oliver died at Belmont on 21 October, 1828, in -the thirty-second year of his age.</p> - -<p>It must be added to the above that before Percy had heard from -Charles, he had in 1794 received a letter from one John Goldsmith, a -sergeant of the South Cork Militia, claiming to be Charles’s son. At first -Percy evidently thought the man an impostor. On one of John’s letters -the Bishop had pencilled “natural son of Charles Goldsmith,” and has -marked as “not true” a story of the marriage of his parents by “my uncle -Henry Goldsmith, who was then Rector of the Parish they lived in,” and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -the reception of such parents by the grandmother Ann Goldsmith and -Catherine Hodson his aunt. John told the Bishop on 2 October, 1808, -“I did not imagine my father Charles Goldsmith was in existence, as I did -not either see or hear from him since I saw your Lordship in Dublin in the -year 1793, nor did I ever hear of his being married a second time.” As -there are amongst the Percy papers receipts dated in October, 1808, May, -1809, and September, 1810, for a total of £35 in all for money disbursed -by the Bishop for the benefit of this John Goldsmith, Percy may have -considered there was something in his story after all.</p> - -<p>As to what subsequently happened to this John Goldsmith and the -eight children on whose behalf he appealed to the generosity of Dr. Percy, -there seems to be no information available, but Prior (II, 574) mentions -that “a person named Goldsmith, and claiming to be a nephew of the -poet, died in the Cholera Hospital in Bristol in 1833: he was in a state of -destitution and may have had no just right to the honour he assumed.” -He may have been this John Goldsmith, son (legitimate or otherwise) of -Charles Goldsmith.</p> - - -<h3>THE PROFITS OF THE PERCY MEMOIR.</h3> - -<p>The original design of Bishop Percy in undertaking the <i>Memoir</i> of his -friend Goldsmith was to benefit Maurice. Then Catherine, daughter of -Henry, was added as a participant in the assumed profits: afterwards (when -Maurice died and Charles revealed himself) Charles Goldsmith, the sole -then remaining brother of Oliver. Percy’s ultimate decision, when the -work took shape and he had made his agreement with Cadell and Davies -in 1797, was for 125 of the 250 free copies of the work given to him by -Cadell and Davies for disposal to be sold through White the bookseller of -Fleet Street for the benefit of Charles, and the remaining 125 copies to be -sold through Archer the bookseller of Dublin for the benefit of Catherine, -daughter of the Revd. Henry. The London copies seem to have gone off -fairly well. Percy in a Memorandum dated Dromore, 24 May, 1808, -explaining the affair long after the event to Dr. R. Anderson (<i>Literary</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -<i>Illustrations</i>, VII, 189-192), says that from Charles “the Bishop frequently -heard, informing him that the payments were duly made, and whatever -copies he desired were delivered to him to dispose of among his friends -for his own benefit. He believes Mr. Charles Goldsmith is since dead, -but the account is still open with his family, to whom Mr. White must -account for any that may have remained of the 125 copies delivered to -him.” The case of the 125 Irish copies was less satisfactory. “It was -principally on account of Catherine Goldsmith, who had been reduced to -indigence, that the Bishop had applied in 1800 to Messrs. Cadell and -Davies to afford some present relief, to alleviate the distress occasioned -by the delay of the publication: which being refused by them, the Bishop -had supplied the same himself, and continued to do so till her death, -which took place before Mr. Archer had come to a settlement for the 125 -copies transmitted to him. Part of these are still unsold.... Whatever -arises from this sale, or remains of Mr. Archer’s balance that was unpaid -to or for the niece, shall be delivered to any relative of Dr. Goldsmith -who shall be found a proper object of the same.” (Nichols’ <i>Literary -Illustrations</i>, VII, 191.)</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_050.jpg" alt="" /></div> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES:</a></h2> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Dr. Thomas Bernard (1728-1806), who was also—like Percy—a member of -The Club.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>See</i> letter from Malone to Percy, 28 Sept., 1807, in <i>Litt. Ill.</i>, VIII, 240.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> I have ascertained that it is not now in the possession of the Nichols family. E. C.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The last two figures are torn away.</p></div> - - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="transnote"> - -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - - -<p>The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is entered into the public domain.</p> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.</p> - -</div> - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Family Letters of Oliver Goldsmith, by -Ernest Clarke - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAMILY LETTERS OF OLIVER *** - -***** This file should be named 62390-h.htm or 62390-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/3/9/62390/ - -Produced by Sonya Schermann, David E. 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