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OLIVER GOLDSMITH

A Biography

by

Washington Irving







PREFACE

I. Birth and Parentage--Characteristics of the Goldsmith Race--Poetical
Birthplace--Goblin House--Scenes of Boyhood--Lissoy--Picture of a Country
Parson--Goldsmith's Schoolmistress--Byrne, the Village Schoolmaster--
Goldsmith's Hornpipe and Epigram--Uncle Contarine--School Studies and
School Sports--Mistakes of a Night

II. Improvident Marriages in the Goldsmith Family--Goldsmith at the
University--Situation of a Sizer--Tyranny of Wilder, the Tutor--Pecuniary
Straits--Street Ballads--College Riot--Gallows Walsh--College Prize--A
Dance Interrupted

III. Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop--Second Sally to see the World--Takes
Passage for America--Ship sails without him--Return on Fiddleback--A
Hospitable Friend--The Counselor

IV. Sallies forth as a Law Student--Stumbles at the Outset--Cousin Jane and
the Valentine--A Family Oracle--Sallies forth as a Student of
Medicine--Hocus-pocus of a Boarding-house--Transformations of a Leg of
Mutton--The Mock Ghost--Sketches of Scotland--Trials of Toryism--A Poet's
Purse for a Continental Tour

V. The agreeable Fellow-passengers--Risks from Friends picked up by the
Wayside--Sketches of Holland and the Dutch--Shifts while a Poor Student at
Leyden--The Tulip Speculation--The Provident Flute--Sojourn at Paris--
Sketch of Voltaire--Traveling Shifts of a Philosophic Vagabond

VI.
Landing In England--Shifts of a Man without Money--The Pestle and
Mortar--Theatricals in a Barn--Launch upon London--A City Night
Scene--Struggles with Penury--Miseries of a Tutor--A Doctor in the
Suburb--Poor Practice and Second-hand Finery--A Tragedy in Embryo--Project
of the Written Mountains

VII. Life as a Pedagogue--Kindness to Schoolboys--Pertness In
Return--Expensive Charities--The Griffiths and the "Monthly Review"--Toils
of a Literary Hack--Rupture with the Griffiths

VIII. Newbery, of Picture-book Memory--How to keep up Appearances--Miseries
of Authorship--A Poor Relation--Letter to Hodson

IX. Hackney Authorship--Thoughts of Literary Suicide--Return to Peckham--
Oriental Projects--Literary Enterprise to raise Funds--Letter to Edward
Wells--To Robert Bryanton--Death of Uncle Contarine--Letter to Cousin Jane

X. Oriental Appointment, and Disappointment--Examination at the College of
Surgeons--How to procure a Suit of Clothes--Fresh Disappointment--A Tale of
Distress--The Suit of Clothes in Pawn--Punishment for doing an act of
Charity--Gayeties of Green-Arbor Court--Letter to his Brother--Life of
Voltaire--Scroggins, an attempt at Hock Heroic Poetry

XI. Publication of "The Inquiry"--Attacked by Griffith's "Review"--Kenrick,
the Literary Ishmaelite--Periodical Literature--Goldsmith's Essays--Garrick
as a Manager--Smollett and his Schemes--Change of Lodgings--The Robin Hood
Club

XII. New Lodgings--Visits of Ceremony--Hangers-on--Pilkington and the White
Mouse--Introduction to Dr. Johnson--Davies and his Bookshop--Pretty Mrs.
Davies--Foote and his Projects--Criticism of the Cudgel

XIII. Oriental Projects--Literary Jobs--The Cherokee Chiefs--Merry
Islington and the White Conduit House--Letters on the History of
England--James Boswell--Dinner of Davies--Anecdotes of Johnson and
Goldsmith

XIV. Hogarth a Visitor at Islington--His Character--Street
Studies--Sympathies between Authors and Painters--Sir Joshua Reynolds--His
Character--His Dinners--The Literary Club--Its Members--Johnson's Revels
with Lanky and Beau--Goldsmith at the Club

XV. Johnson a Monitor to Goldsmith--Finds him in Distress with his
Landlady--Relieved by the Vicar of Wakefield--The Oratorio--Poem of The
Traveler--The Poet and his Dog--Success of the Poem--Astonishment of the
Club--Observations on the Poem

XVI. New Lodgings--Johnson's Compliment--A Titled Patron--The Poet at
Northumberland House--His Independence of the Great--The Countess of
Northumberland--Edwin and Angelina--Gosford and Lord Clare--Publication of
Essays--Evils of a rising Reputation--Hangers-on--Job Writing--Goody
Two-shoes--A Medical Campaign--Mrs. Sidebotham

XVII. Publication of the Vicar of Wakefield--Opinions concerning it--Of
Dr. Johnson--Of Rogers the Poet--Of Goethe--Its Merits--Exquisite
Extract--Attack by Kenrick--Reply--Book-building--Project of a Comedy

XVIII. Social Condition of Goldsmith--His Colloquial Contests with
Johnson--Anecdotes and Illustrations

XIX. Social Resorts--The Shilling Whist Club--A Practical Joke--The
Wednesday Club--The "Ton of Man"--The Pig Butcher--Tom King--Hugh
Kelly--Glover and his Characteristics

XX. The Great Cham of Literature and the King--Scene at Sir Joshua
Reynolds's--Goldsmith accused of Jealousy--Negotiations with Garrick--The
Author and the Actor--Their Correspondence

XXI. More Hack Authorship--Tom Davies and the Roman History--Canonbury
Castle--Political Authorship--Pecuniary Temptation--Death of Newbery the
elder

XXII. Theatrical Maneuvering--The Comedy of False Delicacy--First
Performance of The Good-Natured Man--Conduct of Johnson--Conduct of the
Author--Intermeddling of the Press

XXIII. Burning the Candle at both Ends--Fine Apartments--Fine
Furniture--Fine Clothes--Fine Acquaintances--Shoemaker's Holiday and Jolly
Pigeon Associates--Peter Barlow, Glover, and the Hampstead Hoax--Poor
Friends among Great Acquaintances

XXIV. Reduced again to Book-building--Rural Retreat at Shoemaker's
Paradise--Death of Henry Goldsmith--Tributes to his memory in The Deserted
Village

XXV. Dinner at Bickerstaff's--Hiffernan and his Impecuniosity--Kenrick's
Epigram--Johnson's Consolation--Goldsmith's Toilet--The bloom-colored

Coat--New Acquaintances--The Hornecks--A touch of Poetry and Passion--The
Jessamy Bride

XXVI. Goldsmith in the Temple--Judge Day and Grattan--Labor and
Dissipation--Publication of the Roman History--Opinions of it--History of
Animated Nature--Temple Rooker--Anecdotes of a Spider

XXVII. Honors at the Royal Academy--Letter to his brother Maurice--Family
Fortunes--Jane Contarine and the Miniature--Portraits and
Engravings--School Associations--Johnson and Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey

XXVIII. Publication of the Deserted Village--Notices and Illustrations of
it

XXIX. The Poet among the Ladies--Description of his Person and Manners--
Expedition to Paris with the Horneck Family--The Traveler of Twenty and the
Traveler of Forty--Hickey, the Special Attorney--An Unlucky Exploit

XXX. Death of Goldsmith's Mother--Biography of Parnell--Agreement with
Davies for the History of Rome--Life of Bolingbroke--The Haunch of Venison

XXXI. Dinner at the Royal Academy--The Rowley Controversy--Horace Walpole's
Conduct to Chatterton--Johnson at Redcliffe Church--Goldsmith's History of
England--Davies's Criticism--Letter to Bennet Langton

XXXII. Marriage of Little Comedy--Goldsmith at Barton--Practical Jokes at
the Expense of his Toilet--Amusements at Barton--Aquatic Misadventure

XXXIII. Dinner at General Oglethorpe's--Anecdotes of the General--Dispute
about Dueling--Ghost Stories

XXXIV. Mr. Joseph Cradock--An Author's Confidings--An Amanuensis--Life at
Edgeware--Goldsmith Conjuring--George Colman--The Fantoccini

XXXV. Broken Health--Dissipation and Debts--The Irish Widow--Practical
Jokes--Scrub--A Misquoted Pun--Malagrida--Goldsmith proved to be a
Fool--Distressed Ballad-Singers--The Poet at Ranelagh

XXXVI. Invitation to Christmas--The Spring-velvet Coat--The Haymaking Wig
--The Mischances of Loo--The fair Culprit--A dance with the Jessamy Bride

XXXVII. Theatrical delays--Negotiations with Colman--Letter to
Garrick--Croaking of the Manager--Naming of the Play--She Stoops to
Conquer--Foote's Primitive Puppet Show, Piety on Pattens--First
Performance of the Comedy--Agitation of the Author--Success--Colman
Squibbed out of Town

XXXVIII. A Newspaper Attack--The Evans Affray--Johnson's Comment

XXXIX. Boswell in Holy-Week--Dinner at Oglethorpe's--Dinner at Paoli's--The
policy of Truth--Goldsmith affects Independence of Royalty--Paoli's
Compliment--Johnson's Eulogium on the Fiddle--Question about
Suicide--Boswell's Subserviency

XL. Changes in the Literary Club--Johnson's objection to Garrick--Election
of Boswell

XLI. Dinner at Dilly's--Conversations on Natural History--Intermeddling of
Boswell--Dispute about Toleration--Johnson's Rebuff to Goldsmith--His
Apology--Man-worship--Doctors Major and Minor--A Farewell Visit

XLII. Project of a Dictionary of Arts and
Sciences--Disappointment--Negligent Authorship--Application for a
Pension--Beattie's Essay on Truth--Public Adulation--A high-minded Rebuke

XLIII. Toil without Hope--The Poet in the Green-room--In the Flower
Garden--At Vauxhall--Dissipation without Gayety--Cradock in Town--Friendly
Sympathy--A Parting Scene--An Invitation to Pleasure

XLIV. A return to Drudgery--Forced Gayety--Retreat to the Country--The Poem
of Retaliation--Portrait of Garrick--Of Goldsmith--of Reynolds--Illness of
the Poet--His Death--Grief of his Friends--A last Word respecting the
Jessamy Bride

XLV. The Funeral--The Monument--The Epitaph--Concluding Reflections




PREFACE


In the course of a revised edition of my works I have come to a
biographical sketch of Goldsmith, published several years since. It was
written hastily, as introductory to a selection from his writings; and,
though the facts contained in it were collected from various sources, I was
chiefly indebted for them to the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, who
had collected and collated the most minute particulars of the poet's
history with unwearied research and scrupulous fidelity; but had rendered
them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid with details and
disquisitions, and matters uninteresting to the general reader.

When I was about of late to revise my biographical sketch, preparatory to
republication, a volume was put into my hands, recently given to the public
by Mr. John Forster, of the Inner Temple, who, likewise availing himself of
the labors of the indefatigable Prior, and of a few new lights since
evolved, has produced a biography of the poet, executed with a spirit, a
feeling, a grace and an eloquence, that leave nothing to be desired. Indeed
it would have been presumption in me to undertake the subject after it had
been thus felicitously treated, did I not stand committed by my previous
sketch. That sketch now appeared too meager and insufficient to satisfy
public demand; yet it had to take its place in the revised series of my
works unless something more satisfactory could be substituted. Under these
circumstances I have again taken up the subject, and gone into it with more
fullness than formerly, omitting none of the facts which I considered
illustrative of the life and character of the poet, and giving them in as
graphic a style as I could command. Still the hurried manner in which I
have had to do this amid the pressure of other claims on my attention, and
with the press dogging at my heels, has prevented me from giving some parts
of the subject the thorough handling I could have wished. Those who would
like to see it treated still more at large, with the addition of critical
disquisitions and the advantage of collateral facts, would do well to refer
themselves to Mr. Prior's circumstantial volumes, or to the elegant and
discursive pages of Mr. Forster.

For my own part, I can only regret my shortcomings in what to me is a labor
of love; for it is a tribute of gratitude to the memory of an author whose
writings were the delight of my childhood, and have been a source of
enjoyment to me throughout life; and to whom, of all others, I may address
the beautiful apostrophe of Dante to Virgil:

"Tu se' lo mio maestro, e 'l mio autore:
Tu se' solo colui, da cu, io tolsi
Lo bello stile, che m' ha fato onore. "

W. I.

SUNNYSIDE, _Aug. 1, 1849. _




CHAPTER ONE

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE--CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GOLDSMITH RACE--POETICAL
BIRTHPLACE--GOBLIN HOUSE--SCENES OF BOYHOOD--LISSOY--PICTURE OF A COUNTRY
PARSON--GOLDSMITH'S SCHOOLMISTRESS--BYRNE, THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER
--GOLDSMITH'S HORNPIPE AND EPIGRAM--UNCLE CONTARINE--SCHOOL STUDIES AND
SCHOOL SPORTS--MISTAKES OF A NIGHT


There are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal kindness as
for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so eminently possessed the magic gift of
identifying themselves with their writings. We read his character in every
page, and grow into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless
benevolence that beams throughout his works; the whimsical, yet amiable
views of human life and human nature; the unforced humor, blending so
happily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed at times
with a pleasing melancholy; even the very nature of his mellow, and
flowing, and softly-tinted style, all seem to bespeak his moral as well as
his intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same time that
we admire the author. While the productions of writers of loftier
pretension and more sounding names are suffered to moulder on our shelves,
those of Goldsmith are cherished and laid in our bosoms. We do not quote
them with ostentation, but they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tempers,
and harmonize our thoughts; they put us in good humor with ourselves and
with the world, and in so doing they make us happier and better men.

An acquaintance with the private biography of Goldsmith lets us into the
secret of his gifted pages. We there discover them to be little more than
transcripts of his own heart and picturings of his fortunes. There he shows
himself the same kind, artless, good-humored, excursive, sensible,
whimsical, intelligent being that he appears in his writings. Scarcely an
adventure or character is given in his works that may not be traced to his
own party-colored story. Many of his most ludicrous scenes and ridiculous
incidents have been drawn from his own blunders and mischances, and he
seems really to have been buffeted into almost every maxim imparted by him
for the instruction of his reader.

Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of November, 1728, at the hamlet of
Pallas, or Pallasmore, county of Longford, in Ireland. He sprang from a
respectable, but by no means a thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit
kindliness and incompetency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from
generation to generation. Such was the case with the Goldsmiths. "They were
always," according to their own accounts, "a strange family; they rarely
acted like other people; their hearts were in the right place, but their
heads seemed to be doing anything but what they ought. "--"They were
remarkable," says another statement, "for their worth, but of no cleverness
in the ways of the world. " Oliver Goldsmith will be found faithfully to
inherit the virtues and weaknesses of his race.

His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with hereditary improvidence,
married when very young and very poor, and starved along for several years
on a small country curacy and the assistance of his wife's friends. His
whole income, eked out by the produce of some fields which he farmed, and
of some occasional duties performed for his wife's uncle, the rector of an
adjoining parish, did not exceed forty pounds.

"And passing rich with forty pounds a year. "

He inhabited an old, half rustic mansion that stood on a rising ground in a
rough, lonely part of the country, overlooking a low tract occasionally
flooded by the river Inny. In this house Goldsmith was born, and it was a
birthplace worthy of a poet; for, by all accounts, it was haunted ground. A
tradition handed down among the neighboring peasantry states that, in after
years, the house, remaining for some time untenanted, went to decay, the
roof fell in, and it became so lonely and forlorn as to be a resort for the
"good people" or fairies, who in Ireland are supposed to delight in old,
crazy, deserted mansions for their midnight revels. All attempts to repair
it were in vain; the fairies battled stoutly to maintain possession. A huge
misshapen hobgoblin used to bestride the house every evening with an
immense pair of jack-boots, which, in his efforts at hard riding, he would
thrust through the roof, kicking to pieces all the work of the preceding
day. The house was therefore left to its fate, and went to ruin.

Such is the popular tradition about Goldsmith's birthplace. About two years
after his birth a change came over the circumstances of his father. By the
death of his wife's uncle he succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West;
and, abandoning the old goblin mansion, he removed to Lissoy, in the county
of Westmeath, where he occupied a farm of seventy acres, situated on the
skirts of that pretty little village.

This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world whence he drew
many of those pictures, rural and domestic, whimsical and touching, which
abound throughout his works, and which appeal so eloquently both to the
fancy and the heart. Lissoy is confidently cited as the original of his
"Auburn" in the Deserted Village; his father's establishment, a mixture of
farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it is said, for the rural economy of
the Vicar of Wakefield; and his father himself, with his learned
simplicity, his guileless wisdom, his amiable piety, and utter ignorance of
the world, has been exquisitely portrayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let
us pause for a moment, and draw from Goldsmith's writings one or two of
those pictures which, under feigned names, represent his father and his
family, and the happy fireside of his childish days.

"My father," says the "Man in Black," who, in some respects, is a
counterpart of Goldsmith himself, "my father, the younger son of a good
family, was possessed of a small living in the church. His education was
above his fortune, and his generosity greater than his education. Poor as
he was, he had his flatterers poorer than himself; for every dinner he gave
them, they returned him an equivalent in praise; and this was all he
wanted. The same ambition that actuates a monarch at the head of his army
influenced my father at the head of his table: he told the story of the
ivy-tree, and that was laughed at; he repeated the jest of the two scholars
and one pair of breeches, and the company laughed at that; but the story of
Taffy in the sedan chair was sure to set the table in a roar. Thus his
pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he gave; he loved all the
world, and he fancied all the world loved him.

"As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent of it; he had
no intention of leaving his children money, for that was dross; he resolved
they should have learning, for learning, he used to observe, was better
than silver or gold. For this purpose he undertook to instruct us himself,
and took as much care to form our morals as to improve our understanding.
We were told that universal benevolence was what first cemented society; we
were taught to consider all the wants of mankind as our own; to regard the
_human face divine_ with affection and esteem; he wound us up to be
mere machines of pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding the
slightest impulse made either by real or fictitious distress. In a word, we
were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away thousands before we
were taught the necessary qualifications of getting a farthing. "

In the Deserted Village we have another picture of his father and his
father's fireside:

"His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay.
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began. "

The family of the worthy pastor consisted of five sons and three daughters.
Henry, the eldest, was the good man's pride and hope, and he tasked his
slender means to the utmost in educating him for a learned and
distinguished career. Oliver was the second son, and seven years younger
than Henry, who was the guide and protector of his childhood, and to whom
he was most tenderly attached throughout life.

Oliver's education began when he was about three years old; that is to say,
he was gathered under the wings of one of those good old motherly dames,
found in every village, who cluck together the whole callow brood of the
neighborhood, to teach them their letters and keep them out of harm's way.
Mistress Elizabeth Delap, for that was her name, flourished in this
capacity for upward of fifty years, and it was the pride and boast of her
declining days, when nearly ninety years of age, that she was the first
that had put a book (doubtless a hornbook) into Goldsmith's hands.
Apparently he did not much profit by it, for she confessed he was one of
the dullest boys she had ever dealt with, insomuch that she had sometimes
doubted whether it was possible to make anything of him: a common case with
imaginative children, who are apt to be beguiled from the dry abstractions
of elementary study by the picturings of the fancy.

At six years of age he passed into the hands of the village schoolmaster,
one Thomas (or, as he was commonly and irreverently named, Paddy) Byrne, a
capital tutor for a poet. He had been educated for a pedagogue, but had
enlisted in the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time,
and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the
return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, he resumed the
ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy. Goldsmith is supposed to
have had him and his school in view in the following sketch in his Deserted
Village:

"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd:
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew,
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:
In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around--
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew. "

There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne, not given in
the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of his vagabond wanderings in
foreign lands, and had brought with him from the wars a world of
campaigning stories, of which he was generally the hero, and which he would
deal forth to his wondering scholars when he ought to have been teaching
them their lessons. These travelers' tales had a powerful effect upon the
vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened an unconquerable passion for
wandering and seeking adventure.

Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly superstitious. He
was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland, all
which he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon
became almost as great a proficient in fairy lore. From this branch of
good-for-nothing knowledge, his studies, by an easy transition, extended to
the histories of robbers, pirates, smugglers, and the whole race of Irish
rogues and rapparees. Everything, in short, that savored of romance, fable,
and adventure was congenial to his poetic mind, and took instant root
there; but the slow plants of useful knowledge were apt to be overrun, if
not choked, by the weeds of his quick imagination.

Another trait of his motley preceptor, Byrne, was a disposition to dabble
in poetry, and this likewise was caught by his pupil. Before he was eight
years old Goldsmith had contracted a habit of scribbling verses on small
scraps of paper, which, in a little while, he would throw into the fire. A
few of these sybilline leaves, however, were rescued from the flames and
conveyed to his mother. The good woman read them with a mother's delight,
and saw at once that her son was a genius and a poet. From that time she
beset her husband with solicitations to give the boy an education suitable
to his talents. The worthy man was already straitened by the costs of
instruction of his eldest son Henry, and had intended to bring his second
son up to a trade; but the mother would listen to no such thing; as usual,
her influence prevailed, and Oliver, instead of being instructed in some
humble but cheerful and gainful handicraft, was devoted to poverty and the
Muse.

A severe attack of the small-pox caused him to be taken from under the care
of his story-telling preceptor, Byrne. His malady had nearly proved fatal,
and his face remained pitted through life. On his recovery he was placed
under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of Elphin, in
Roscommon, and became an inmate in the house of his uncle, John Goldsmith,
Esq. , of Ballyoughter, in that vicinity. He now entered upon studies of a
higher order, but without making any uncommon progress. Still a careless,
easy facility of disposition, an amusing eccentricity of manners, and a
vein of quiet and peculiar humor, rendered him a general favorite, and a
trifling incident soon induced his uncle's family to concur in his mother's
opinion of his genius.

A number of young folks had assembled at his uncle's to dance. One of the
company, named Cummings, played on the violin. In the course of the evening
Oliver undertook a hornpipe. His short and clumsy figure, and his face
pitted and discolored with the small-pox, rendered him a ludicrous figure
in the eyes of the musician, who made merry at his expense, dubbing him his
little Aesop. Goldsmith was nettled by the jest, and, stopping short in the
hornpipe, exclaimed:

"Our herald hath proclaimed this saying,
See Aesop dancing, and his monkey playing. "

The repartee was thought wonderful for a boy of nine years old, and Oliver
became forthwith the wit and the bright genius of the family. It was
thought a pity he should not receive the same advantages with his elder
brother Henry, who had been sent to the University; and, as his father's
circumstances would not afford it, several of his relatives, spurred on by
the representations of his mother, agreed to contribute toward the expense.
The greater part, however, was borne by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas
Contarine. This worthy man had been the college companion of Bishop
Berkeley, and was possessed of moderate means, holding the living of
Carrick-on-Shannon. He had married the sister of Goldsmith's father, but
was now a widower, with an only child, a daughter, named Jane. Contarine
was a kind-hearted man, with a generosity beyond his means. He took
Goldsmith into favor from his infancy; his house was open to him during the
holidays; his daughter Jane, two years older than the poet, was his early
playmate, and uncle Contarine continued to the last one of his most active,
unwavering, and generous friends.

Fitted out in a great measure by this considerate relative, Oliver was now
transferred to schools of a higher order, to prepare him for the
University; first to one at Athlone, kept by the Rev. Mr. Campbell, and, at
the end of two years, to one at Edgeworthstown, under the superintendence
of the Rev. Patrick Hughes.

Even at these schools his proficiency does not appear to have been
brilliant. He was indolent and careless, however, rather than dull, and, on
the whole, appears to have been well thought of by his teachers. In his
studies he inclined toward the Latin poets and historians; relished Ovid
and Horace, and delighted in Livy. He exercised himself with pleasure in
reading and translating Tacitus, and was brought to pay attention to style
in his compositions by a reproof from his brother Henry, to whom he had
written brief and confused letters, and who told him in reply that if he
had but little to say to endeavor to say that little well.

The career of his brother Henry at the University was enough to stimulate
him to exertion. He seemed to be realizing all his father's hopes, and was
winning collegiate honors that the good man considered indicative of his
future success in life.

In the meanwhile Oliver, if not distinguished among his teachers, was
popular among his schoolmates. He had a thoughtless generosity extremely
captivating to young hearts; his temper was quick and sensitive, and easily
offended; but his anger was momentary, and it was impossible for him to
harbor resentment. He was the leader of all boyish sports and athletic
amusements, especially ball-playing, and he was foremost in all mischievous
pranks. Many years afterward, an old man, Jack Fitzimmons, one of the
directors of the sports and keeper of the ball-court at Ballymahon, used to
boast of having been schoolmate of "Noll Goldsmith," as he called him, and
would dwell with vainglory on one of their exploits, in robbing the orchard
of Tirlicken, an old family residence of Lord Annaly. The exploit, however,
had nearly involved disastrous consequences; for the crew of juvenile
depredators were captured, like Shakespeare and his deer-stealing
colleagues, and nothing but the respectability of Goldsmith's connections
saved him from the punishment that would have awaited more plebeian
delinquents.

An amusing incident is related as occurring in Goldsmith's last journey
homeward from Edgeworthstown. His father's house was about twenty miles
distant; the road lay through a rough country, impassable for carriages.
Goldsmith procured a horse for the journey, and a friend furnished him with
a guinea for traveling expenses. He was but a stripling of sixteen, and
being thus suddenly mounted on horseback, with money in his pocket, it is
no wonder that his head was turned. He determined to play the man, and to
spend his money in independent traveler's style. Accordingly, instead of
pushing directly for home, he halted for the night at the little town of
Ardagh, and, accosting the first person he met, inquired, with somewhat of
a consequential air, for the best house in the place. Unluckily, the person
he had accosted was one Kelly, a notorious wag, who was quartered in the
family of one Mr. Featherstone, a gentleman of fortune. Amused with the
self-consequence of the stripling, and willing to play off a practical joke
at his expense, he directed him to what was literally "the best house in
the place," namely, the family mansion of Mr. Featherstone. Goldsmith
accordingly rode up to what he supposed to be an inn, ordered his horse to
be taken to the stable, walked into the parlor, seated himself by the fire,
and demanded what he could have for supper. On ordinary occasions he was
diffident and even awkward in his manners, but here he was "at ease in his
inn," and felt called upon to show his manhood and enact the experienced
traveler. His person was by no means calculated to play off his
pretensions, for he was short and thick, with a pock-marked face, and an
air and carriage by no means of a distinguished cast. The owner of the
house, however, soon discovered his whimsical mistake, and, being a man of
humor, determined to indulge it, especially as he accidentally learned that
this intruding guest was the son of an old acquaintance.

Accordingly Goldsmith was "fooled to the top of his bent," and permitted to
have full sway throughout the evening. Never was schoolboy more elated.
When supper was served, he most condescendingly insisted that the landlord,
his wife and daughter should partake, and ordered a bottle of wine to crown
the repast and benefit the house. His last flourish was on going to bed,
when he gave especial orders to have a hot cake at breakfast. His confusion
and dismay, on discovering the next morning that he had been swaggering in
this free and easy way in the house of a private gentleman, may be readily
conceived. True to his habit of turning the events of his life to literary
account, we find this chapter of ludicrous blunders and cross purposes
dramatized many years afterward in his admirable comedy of "She Stoops to
Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night. "




CHAPTER TWO

IMPROVIDENT MARRIAGES IN THE GOLDSMITH FAMILY--GOLDSMITH AT THE
UNIVERSITY--SITUATION OF A SIZER--TYRANNY OF WILDER, THE TUTOR--PECUNIARY
STRAITS--STREET BALLADS--COLLEGE RIOT--GALLOWS WALSH--COLLEGE PRIZE--A
DANCE INTERRUPTED


While Oliver was making his way somewhat negligently through the schools,
his elder brother Henry was rejoicing his father's heart by his career at
the University. He soon distinguished himself at the examinations, and
obtained a scholarship in 1743. This is a collegiate distinction which
serves as a stepping-stone in any of the learned professions, and which
leads to advancement in the University should the individual choose to
remain there. His father now trusted that he would push forward for that
comfortable provision, a fellowship, and thence to higher dignities and
emoluments. Henry, however, had the improvidence or the "unworldliness" of
his race; returning to the country during the succeeding vacation, he
married for love, relinquished, of course, all his collegiate prospects and
advantages, set up a school in his father's neighborhood, and buried his
talents and acquirements for the remainder of his life in a curacy of forty
pounds a year.

Another matrimonial event occurred not long afterward in the Goldsmith
family, to disturb the equanimity of its worthy head. This was the
clandestine marriage of his daughter Catherine with a young gentleman of
the name of Hodson, who had been confided to the care of her brother Henry
to complete his studies. As the youth was of wealthy parentage, it was
thought a lucky match for the Goldsmith family; but the tidings of the
event stung the bride's father to the soul. Proud of his integrity, and
jealous of that good name which was his chief possession, he saw himself
and his family subjected to the degrading suspicion of having abused a
trust reposed in them to promote a mercenary match. In the first transports
of his feelings he is said to have uttered a wish that his daughter might
never have a child to bring like shame and sorrow on her head. The hasty
wish, so contrary to the usual benignity of the man, was recalled and
repented of almost as soon as uttered; but it was considered baleful in its
effects by the superstitious neighborhood; for, though his daughter bore
three children, they all died before her.

A more effectual measure was taken by Mr. Goldsmith to ward off the
apprehended imputation, but one which imposed a heavy burden on his family.
This was to furnish a marriage portion of four hundred pounds, that his
daughter might not be said to have entered her husband's family
empty-handed.