From an
aquatint
by S.
Oliver Goldsmith
It is 'extended,'
because it now contains the whole of Goldsmith's poetry: it is 'revised'
because, besides the supplementary text, a good deal has been added in
the way of annotation and illustration. In other words, the book has
been substantially enlarged. Of the new editorial material, the bulk has
been collected at odd times during the last twenty years; but fresh
Goldsmith facts are growing rare. I hope I have acknowledged obligation
wherever it has been incurred; I trust also, for the sake of those who
come after me, that something of my own will be found to have been
contributed to the literature of the subject.
AUSTIN DOBSON.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chronology of Goldsmith's Life and Poems
POEMS
The Traveller; or, A Prospect of Society
The Deserted Village
Prologue of Laberius
On a Beautiful Youth struck Blind with Lightning
The Gift. To Iris, in Bow Street
The Logicians Refuted
A Sonnet
Stanzas on the Taking of Quebec
An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize
Description of an Author's Bedchamber
On seeing Mrs. *** perform in the Character of ****
On the Death of the Right Hon. ***
An Epigram. Addressed to the Gentlemen reflected on
in 'The Rosciad', a Poem, by the Author
To G. C. and R. L
Translation of a South American Ode
The Double Transformation. A Tale
A New Simile, in the Manner of Swift
Edwin and Angelina
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
Song ('When Lovely Woman,' &c. )
Epilogue to 'The Good Natur'd Man'
Epilogue to 'The Sister'
Prologue to 'Zobeide'
Threnodia Augustalis: Sacred to the Memory of Her
Late Royal Highness the Princess Dowager
of Wales
Song ('Let School-masters,' &c. )
Epilogue to 'She Stoops to Conquer'
Retaliation
Song ('Ah, me! when shall I marry me? ')
Translation ('Chaste are their instincts')
The Haunch of Venison
Epitaph on Thomas Parnell
The Clown's Reply
Epitaph on Edward Purdon
Epilogue for Lee Lewes
Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1)
Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (2)
The Captivity. An Oratorio
Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner
Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury
Vida's Game of Chess
NOTES
Introduction to the Notes
Editions of the Poems
The Traveller
The Deserted Village
Prologue of Laberius
On a Beautiful Youth struck Blind with Lightning
The Gift
The Logicians Refuted
A Sonnet
Stanzas on the Taking of Quebec
An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize
Description of an Author's Bedchamber
On seeing Mrs. *** perform in the Character of ****
On the Death of the Right Hon. ***
An Epigram
To G. C. and R. L.
Translation of a South American Ode
The Double Transformation
A New Simile
Edwin and Angelina
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
Song (from 'The Vicar of Wakefield')
Epilogue ('The Good Natur'd Man')
Epilogue ('The Sister')
Prologue ('Zobeide')
Threnodia Augustalis
Song (from 'She Stoops to Conquer')
Epilogue ('She Stoops to Conquer')
Retaliation
Song intended for 'She Stoops to Conquer'
Translation
The Haunch of Venison
Epitaph on Thomas Parnell
The Clown's Reply
Epitaph on Edward Purdon
Epilogue for Lee Lewes's Benefit
Epilogue ('She Stoops to Conquer') (1)
Epilogue ('She Stoops to Conquer') (2)
The Captivity
Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner
Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury
Vida's Game of Chess
APPENDIXES
Portraits of Goldsmith
Descriptions of Newell's Views of Lissoy, &c
The Epithet 'Sentimental'
Fragments of Translations, &c. , by Goldsmith
Goldsmith on Poetry under Anne and George the First
Criticisms from Goldsmith's
'Beauties of English Poesy'
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. From Joseph Marchi's mezzotint of 1770
after the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. . . . . . Frontispiece.
PANE OF GLASS with Goldsmith's autograph signature, dated
March, 1746, now at Trinity College, Dublin. . . . . To face p. xi
VIGNETTE TO THE TRAVELLER. Drawn by Samuel Wale, and
engraved by Charles Grignion . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 3
HEADPIECE TO THE TRAVELLER. Engraved on wood by Charlton
Nesbit for Bulmer's 'Poems of Goldsmith and
Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 5
THE TRAVELLER. From a design by Richard Westall, R. A. ,
engraved on wood by Thomas Bewick for Bulmer's
'Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . To face p. 8
VIGNETTE TO THE DESERTED VILLAGE, 1770. Drawn and
engraved by Isaac Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 21
HEADPIECE TO THE DESERTED VILLAGE. Engraved on wood
by Charlton Nesbit for Bulmer's 'Poems of
Goldsmith and Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 23
THE WATER-CRESS GATHERER. Drawn and engraved on wood
by John Bewick for Bulmer's 'Poems of Goldsmith and
Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 27
THE DEPARTURE. Drawn by Robert Johnson, and engraved
on wood by Thomas Bewick for Bulmer's 'Poems of
Goldsmith and Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 35
EDWIN AND ANGELINA. From an original washed drawing
made by Thomas Stothard, R. A. , for Aikin's
'Goldsmith's Poetical Works', 1805 . . . . . . . . . To face p. 59
PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH, after Sir Joshua Reynolds. From
an etching by James Basire on the title-page
of 'Retaliation', 1774 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 87
SONG FROM THE CAPTIVITY. Facsimile of Goldsmith's
writing and signature, from Prior's 'Life of
Oliver Goldsmith, M. B. ', 1837, ii, frontispiece. . . To face p. 119
GREEN ARBOUR COURT, OLD BAILEY. From an engraving in
the 'European Magazine' for January, 1803. . . . . . To face p. 160
KILKENNY WEST CHURCH.
From an aquatint by S. Alken of
a sketch by R. H. Newell ('Goldsmith's Poetical
Works', 1811). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 179
HAWTHORN TREE. From the same . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 180
SOUTH VIEW FROM GOLDSMITH'S MOUNT. From the same . . . . To face p. 183
THE SCHOOL HOUSE. From the same . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 187
PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH. Drawn by Henry William Bunbury
and etched by James Bretherton. From the
'Haunch of Venison', 1776. . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 259
PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH. From a silhouette by Ozias
Humphry, R. A. , in the National Portrait Gallery. . . To face p. 261
LISSOY (OR LISHOY) MILL. From an aquatint by S. Alken
of a sketch by R. H. Newell ('Goldsmith's
Poetical Works', 1811) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 262
THE PARSONAGE. From the same . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 264
INTRODUCTION
Two of the earlier, and, in some respects, more important 'Memoirs' of
Oliver Goldsmith open with a quotation from one of his minor works, in
which he refers to the generally uneventful life of the scholar. His own
chequered career was a notable exception to this rule. He was born on
the 10th of November, 1728, at Pallas, a village in the county of
Longford in Ireland, his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, being a
clergyman of the Established Church. Oliver was the fifth of a family of
five sons and three daughters. In 1730, his father, who had been
assisting the rector of the neighbouring parish of Kilkenny West,
succeeded to that living, and moved to Lissoy, a hamlet in Westmeath,
lying a little to the right of the road from Ballymahon to Athlone.
Educated first by a humble relative named Elizabeth Delap, the boy
passed subsequently to the care of Thomas Byrne, the village
schoolmaster, an old soldier who had fought Queen Anne's battles in
Spain, and had retained from those experiences a wandering and unsettled
spirit, which he is thought to have communicated to one at least of his
pupils. After an attack of confluent small-pox, which scarred him for
life, Oliver was transferred from the care of this not-uncongenial
preceptor to a school at Elphin. From Elphin he passed to Athlone; from
Athlone to Edgeworthstown, where he remained until he was thirteen or
fourteen years of age. The accounts of these early days are
contradictory. By his schoolfellows he seems to have been regarded as
stupid and heavy,--'little better than a fool'; but they admitted that
he was remarkably active and athletic, and that he was an adept in all
boyish sports. At home, notwithstanding a variable disposition, and
occasional fits of depression, he showed to greater advantage. He
scribbled verses early; and sometimes startled those about him by
unexpected 'swallow-flights' of repartee. One of these, an oft-quoted
retort to a musical friend who had likened his awkward antics in a
hornpipe to the dancing of Aesop,--
Heralds! proclaim aloud! all saying,
See 'Aesop' dancing, and his 'monkey' playing,--
reads more like a happily-adapted recollection than the actual impromptu
of a boy of nine. But another, in which, after a painful silence, he
replied to the brutal enquiry of a ne'er-do-well relative as to when he
meant to grow handsome, by saying that he would do so when the speaker
grew good,--is characteristic of the easily-wounded spirit and
'exquisite sensibility of contempt' with which he was to enter upon the
battle of life.
In June, 1744, after anticipating in his own person, the plot of his
later play of 'She Stoops to Conquer' by mistaking the house of a
gentleman at Ardagh for an inn, he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin.
The special dress and semi-menial footing of a sizar or poor
scholar--for his father, impoverished by the imprudent portioning of his
eldest daughter, could not afford to make him a pensioner--were scarcely
calculated to modify his personal peculiarities. Added to these, his
tutor elect, Dr. Theaker Wilder, was a violent and vindictive man, with
whom his ungainly and unhopeful pupil found little favour. Wilder had a
passion for mathematics which was not shared by Goldsmith, who, indeed,
spoke contemptuously enough of that science in after life. He could,
however, he told Malone, 'turn an Ode of Horace into English better than
any of them. ' But his academic career was not a success. In May, 1747,
the year in which his father died,--an event that further contracted his
already slender means,--he became involved in a college riot, and was
publicly admonished. From this disgrace he recovered to some extent in
the following month by obtaining a trifling money exhibition, a triumph
which he unluckily celebrated by a party at his rooms. Into these
festivities, the heinousness of which was aggravated by the fact that
they included guests of both sexes, the exasperated Wilder made
irruption, and summarily terminated the proceedings by knocking down the
host. The disgrace was too much for the poor lad. He forthwith sold his
books and belongings, and ran away, vaguely bound for America. But after
considerable privations, including the achievement of a destitution so
complete that a handful of grey peas, given him by a girl at a wake,
seemed a banquet, he turned his steps homeward, and, a reconciliation
having been patched up with his tutor, he was received once more at
college. In February, 1749, he took his degree, a low one, as B. A. , and
quitted the university, leaving behind him, for relics of that time, a
scratched signature upon a window-pane, a 'folio' Scapula scored
liberally with 'promises to pay,' and a reputation for much loitering at
the college gates in the study of passing humanity. Another habit which
his associates recalled was his writing of ballads when in want of
funds. These he would sell at five shillings apiece; and would
afterwards steal out in the twilight to hear them sung to the
indiscriminate but applauding audience of the Dublin streets.
What was to be done with a genius so unstable, so erratic? Nothing,
apparently, but to let him qualify for orders, and for this he is too
young. Thereupon ensues a sort of 'Martin's summer' in his changing
life,--a disengaged, delightful time when 'Master Noll' wanders
irresponsibly from house to house, fishing and flute-playing, or, of
winter evenings, taking the chair at the village inn. When at last the
moment came for his presentation to the Bishop of Elphin, that prelate,
sad to say, rejected him, perhaps because of his college reputation,
perhaps because of actual incompetence, perhaps even, as tradition
affirms, because he had the bad taste to appear before his examiner in
flaming scarlet breeches. After this rebuff, tutoring was next tried.
But he had no sooner saved some thirty pounds by teaching, than he threw
up his engagement, bought a horse, and started once more for America, by
way of Cork. In six weeks he had returned penniless, having substituted
for his roadster a sorry jade, to which he gave the contemptuous name of
Fiddleback. He had also the simplicity to wonder, on this occasion, that
his mother was not rejoiced to see him again. His next ambition was to
be a lawyer; and, to this end, a kindly Uncle Contarine equipped him
with fifty pounds for preliminary studies. But on his way to London he
was decoyed into gambling, lost every farthing, and came home once more
in bitter self-abasement. Having now essayed both divinity and law, his
next attempt was physic; and, in 1752, fitted out afresh by his
long-suffering uncle, he started for, and succeeded in reaching,
Edinburgh. Here more memories survive of his social qualities than of
his studies; and two years later he left the Scottish capital for
Leyden, rather, it may be conjectured, from a restless desire to see the
world than really to exchange the lectures of Monro for the lectures of
Albinus. At Newcastle (according to his own account) he had the good
fortune to be locked up as a Jacobite, and thus escaped drowning, as the
ship by which he was to have sailed to Bordeaux sank at the mouth of the
Garonne. Shortly afterwards he arrived in Leyden. Gaubius and other
Dutch professors figure sonorously in his future works; but whether he
had much experimental knowledge of their instructions may be doubted.
What seems undeniable is, that the old seduction of play stripped him of
every shilling; so that, like Holberg before him, he set out
deliberately to make the tour of Europe on foot. 'Haud inexpertus
loquor,' he wrote in after days, when praising this mode of locomotion.
He first visited Flanders. Thence he passed to France, Germany,
Switzerland, and Italy, supporting himself mainly by his flute, and by
occasional disputations at convents or universities. 'Sir,' said Boswell
to Johnson, 'he 'disputed' his passage through Europe. ' When on the 1st
February, 1756, he landed at Dover, it was with empty pockets. But he
had sent home to his brother in Ireland his first rough sketch for the
poem of 'The Traveller'.
He was now seven-and-twenty. He had seen and suffered much, but he was
to have further trials before drifting definitely into literature.
Between Dover and London, it has been surmised, he made a tentative
appearance as a strolling player. His next ascertained part was that of
an apothecary's assistant on Fish Street Hill. From this, with the
opportune aid of an Edinburgh friend, he proceeded--to use an
eighteenth-century phrase--a poor physician in the Bankside, Southwark,
where least of all, perhaps, was London's fabled pavement to be found.
So little of it, in fact, fell to Goldsmith's share, that we speedily
find him reduced to the rank of reader and corrector of the press to
Samuel Richardson, printer, of Salisbury Court, author of 'Clarissa'.
Later still he is acting as help or substitute in Dr. Milner's
'classical academy' at Peckham. Here, at last, chance seemed to open to
him the prospect of a literary life. He had already, says report,
submitted a manuscript tragedy to Richardson's judgement; and something
he said at Dr. Milner's table attracted the attention of an occasional
visitor there, the bookseller Griffiths, who was also proprietor of the
'Monthly Review'. He invited Dr. Milner's usher to try his hand at
criticism; and finally, in April, 1757, Goldsmith was bound over for a
year to that venerable lady whom George Primrose dubs 'the 'antiqua
mater' of Grub Street'--in other words, he was engaged for bed, board,
and a fixed salary to supply copy-of-all-work to his master's magazine.
The arrangement thus concluded was not calculated to endure. After some
five months of labour from nine till two, and often later, it came
suddenly to an end. No clear explanation of the breach is forthcoming,
but mere incompatability of temper would probably supply a sufficient
ground for disagreement. Goldsmith, it is said, complained that the
bookseller and his wife treated him ill, and denied him ordinary
comforts; added to which the lady, a harder taskmistress even than the
'antiqua mater' above referred to, joined with her husband in 'editing'
his articles, a course which, hard though it may seem, is not
unprecedented. However this may be, either in September or October,
1757, he was again upon the world, existing precariously from hand to
mouth. 'By a very little practice as a physician, and very little
reputation as a poet [a title which, as Prior suggests, possibly means
no more than author], I make a shift to live. ' So he wrote to his
brother-in-law in December. What his literary occupations were cannot be
definitely stated; but, if not prepared before, they probably included
the translation of a remarkable work issued by Griffiths and others in
the ensuing February. This was the 'Memoirs of a Protestant, condemned
to the Galleys of France for his Religion', being the authentic record
of the sufferings of one Jean Marteilhe of Bergerac, a book of which
Michelet has said that it is 'written as if between earth and heaven. '
Marteilhe, who died at Cuylenberg in 1777, was living in Holland in
1758; and it may be that Goldsmith had seen or heard of him during his
own stay in that country. The translation, however, did not bear
Goldsmith's name, but that of James Willington, one of his old
class-fellows at Trinity College.
because it now contains the whole of Goldsmith's poetry: it is 'revised'
because, besides the supplementary text, a good deal has been added in
the way of annotation and illustration. In other words, the book has
been substantially enlarged. Of the new editorial material, the bulk has
been collected at odd times during the last twenty years; but fresh
Goldsmith facts are growing rare. I hope I have acknowledged obligation
wherever it has been incurred; I trust also, for the sake of those who
come after me, that something of my own will be found to have been
contributed to the literature of the subject.
AUSTIN DOBSON.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chronology of Goldsmith's Life and Poems
POEMS
The Traveller; or, A Prospect of Society
The Deserted Village
Prologue of Laberius
On a Beautiful Youth struck Blind with Lightning
The Gift. To Iris, in Bow Street
The Logicians Refuted
A Sonnet
Stanzas on the Taking of Quebec
An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize
Description of an Author's Bedchamber
On seeing Mrs. *** perform in the Character of ****
On the Death of the Right Hon. ***
An Epigram. Addressed to the Gentlemen reflected on
in 'The Rosciad', a Poem, by the Author
To G. C. and R. L
Translation of a South American Ode
The Double Transformation. A Tale
A New Simile, in the Manner of Swift
Edwin and Angelina
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
Song ('When Lovely Woman,' &c. )
Epilogue to 'The Good Natur'd Man'
Epilogue to 'The Sister'
Prologue to 'Zobeide'
Threnodia Augustalis: Sacred to the Memory of Her
Late Royal Highness the Princess Dowager
of Wales
Song ('Let School-masters,' &c. )
Epilogue to 'She Stoops to Conquer'
Retaliation
Song ('Ah, me! when shall I marry me? ')
Translation ('Chaste are their instincts')
The Haunch of Venison
Epitaph on Thomas Parnell
The Clown's Reply
Epitaph on Edward Purdon
Epilogue for Lee Lewes
Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1)
Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (2)
The Captivity. An Oratorio
Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner
Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury
Vida's Game of Chess
NOTES
Introduction to the Notes
Editions of the Poems
The Traveller
The Deserted Village
Prologue of Laberius
On a Beautiful Youth struck Blind with Lightning
The Gift
The Logicians Refuted
A Sonnet
Stanzas on the Taking of Quebec
An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize
Description of an Author's Bedchamber
On seeing Mrs. *** perform in the Character of ****
On the Death of the Right Hon. ***
An Epigram
To G. C. and R. L.
Translation of a South American Ode
The Double Transformation
A New Simile
Edwin and Angelina
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
Song (from 'The Vicar of Wakefield')
Epilogue ('The Good Natur'd Man')
Epilogue ('The Sister')
Prologue ('Zobeide')
Threnodia Augustalis
Song (from 'She Stoops to Conquer')
Epilogue ('She Stoops to Conquer')
Retaliation
Song intended for 'She Stoops to Conquer'
Translation
The Haunch of Venison
Epitaph on Thomas Parnell
The Clown's Reply
Epitaph on Edward Purdon
Epilogue for Lee Lewes's Benefit
Epilogue ('She Stoops to Conquer') (1)
Epilogue ('She Stoops to Conquer') (2)
The Captivity
Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner
Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury
Vida's Game of Chess
APPENDIXES
Portraits of Goldsmith
Descriptions of Newell's Views of Lissoy, &c
The Epithet 'Sentimental'
Fragments of Translations, &c. , by Goldsmith
Goldsmith on Poetry under Anne and George the First
Criticisms from Goldsmith's
'Beauties of English Poesy'
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. From Joseph Marchi's mezzotint of 1770
after the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. . . . . . Frontispiece.
PANE OF GLASS with Goldsmith's autograph signature, dated
March, 1746, now at Trinity College, Dublin. . . . . To face p. xi
VIGNETTE TO THE TRAVELLER. Drawn by Samuel Wale, and
engraved by Charles Grignion . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 3
HEADPIECE TO THE TRAVELLER. Engraved on wood by Charlton
Nesbit for Bulmer's 'Poems of Goldsmith and
Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 5
THE TRAVELLER. From a design by Richard Westall, R. A. ,
engraved on wood by Thomas Bewick for Bulmer's
'Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . To face p. 8
VIGNETTE TO THE DESERTED VILLAGE, 1770. Drawn and
engraved by Isaac Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 21
HEADPIECE TO THE DESERTED VILLAGE. Engraved on wood
by Charlton Nesbit for Bulmer's 'Poems of
Goldsmith and Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 23
THE WATER-CRESS GATHERER. Drawn and engraved on wood
by John Bewick for Bulmer's 'Poems of Goldsmith and
Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 27
THE DEPARTURE. Drawn by Robert Johnson, and engraved
on wood by Thomas Bewick for Bulmer's 'Poems of
Goldsmith and Parnell', 1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 35
EDWIN AND ANGELINA. From an original washed drawing
made by Thomas Stothard, R. A. , for Aikin's
'Goldsmith's Poetical Works', 1805 . . . . . . . . . To face p. 59
PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH, after Sir Joshua Reynolds. From
an etching by James Basire on the title-page
of 'Retaliation', 1774 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 87
SONG FROM THE CAPTIVITY. Facsimile of Goldsmith's
writing and signature, from Prior's 'Life of
Oliver Goldsmith, M. B. ', 1837, ii, frontispiece. . . To face p. 119
GREEN ARBOUR COURT, OLD BAILEY. From an engraving in
the 'European Magazine' for January, 1803. . . . . . To face p. 160
KILKENNY WEST CHURCH.
From an aquatint by S. Alken of
a sketch by R. H. Newell ('Goldsmith's Poetical
Works', 1811). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 179
HAWTHORN TREE. From the same . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 180
SOUTH VIEW FROM GOLDSMITH'S MOUNT. From the same . . . . To face p. 183
THE SCHOOL HOUSE. From the same . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 187
PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH. Drawn by Henry William Bunbury
and etched by James Bretherton. From the
'Haunch of Venison', 1776. . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 259
PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH. From a silhouette by Ozias
Humphry, R. A. , in the National Portrait Gallery. . . To face p. 261
LISSOY (OR LISHOY) MILL. From an aquatint by S. Alken
of a sketch by R. H. Newell ('Goldsmith's
Poetical Works', 1811) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 262
THE PARSONAGE. From the same . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 264
INTRODUCTION
Two of the earlier, and, in some respects, more important 'Memoirs' of
Oliver Goldsmith open with a quotation from one of his minor works, in
which he refers to the generally uneventful life of the scholar. His own
chequered career was a notable exception to this rule. He was born on
the 10th of November, 1728, at Pallas, a village in the county of
Longford in Ireland, his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, being a
clergyman of the Established Church. Oliver was the fifth of a family of
five sons and three daughters. In 1730, his father, who had been
assisting the rector of the neighbouring parish of Kilkenny West,
succeeded to that living, and moved to Lissoy, a hamlet in Westmeath,
lying a little to the right of the road from Ballymahon to Athlone.
Educated first by a humble relative named Elizabeth Delap, the boy
passed subsequently to the care of Thomas Byrne, the village
schoolmaster, an old soldier who had fought Queen Anne's battles in
Spain, and had retained from those experiences a wandering and unsettled
spirit, which he is thought to have communicated to one at least of his
pupils. After an attack of confluent small-pox, which scarred him for
life, Oliver was transferred from the care of this not-uncongenial
preceptor to a school at Elphin. From Elphin he passed to Athlone; from
Athlone to Edgeworthstown, where he remained until he was thirteen or
fourteen years of age. The accounts of these early days are
contradictory. By his schoolfellows he seems to have been regarded as
stupid and heavy,--'little better than a fool'; but they admitted that
he was remarkably active and athletic, and that he was an adept in all
boyish sports. At home, notwithstanding a variable disposition, and
occasional fits of depression, he showed to greater advantage. He
scribbled verses early; and sometimes startled those about him by
unexpected 'swallow-flights' of repartee. One of these, an oft-quoted
retort to a musical friend who had likened his awkward antics in a
hornpipe to the dancing of Aesop,--
Heralds! proclaim aloud! all saying,
See 'Aesop' dancing, and his 'monkey' playing,--
reads more like a happily-adapted recollection than the actual impromptu
of a boy of nine. But another, in which, after a painful silence, he
replied to the brutal enquiry of a ne'er-do-well relative as to when he
meant to grow handsome, by saying that he would do so when the speaker
grew good,--is characteristic of the easily-wounded spirit and
'exquisite sensibility of contempt' with which he was to enter upon the
battle of life.
In June, 1744, after anticipating in his own person, the plot of his
later play of 'She Stoops to Conquer' by mistaking the house of a
gentleman at Ardagh for an inn, he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin.
The special dress and semi-menial footing of a sizar or poor
scholar--for his father, impoverished by the imprudent portioning of his
eldest daughter, could not afford to make him a pensioner--were scarcely
calculated to modify his personal peculiarities. Added to these, his
tutor elect, Dr. Theaker Wilder, was a violent and vindictive man, with
whom his ungainly and unhopeful pupil found little favour. Wilder had a
passion for mathematics which was not shared by Goldsmith, who, indeed,
spoke contemptuously enough of that science in after life. He could,
however, he told Malone, 'turn an Ode of Horace into English better than
any of them. ' But his academic career was not a success. In May, 1747,
the year in which his father died,--an event that further contracted his
already slender means,--he became involved in a college riot, and was
publicly admonished. From this disgrace he recovered to some extent in
the following month by obtaining a trifling money exhibition, a triumph
which he unluckily celebrated by a party at his rooms. Into these
festivities, the heinousness of which was aggravated by the fact that
they included guests of both sexes, the exasperated Wilder made
irruption, and summarily terminated the proceedings by knocking down the
host. The disgrace was too much for the poor lad. He forthwith sold his
books and belongings, and ran away, vaguely bound for America. But after
considerable privations, including the achievement of a destitution so
complete that a handful of grey peas, given him by a girl at a wake,
seemed a banquet, he turned his steps homeward, and, a reconciliation
having been patched up with his tutor, he was received once more at
college. In February, 1749, he took his degree, a low one, as B. A. , and
quitted the university, leaving behind him, for relics of that time, a
scratched signature upon a window-pane, a 'folio' Scapula scored
liberally with 'promises to pay,' and a reputation for much loitering at
the college gates in the study of passing humanity. Another habit which
his associates recalled was his writing of ballads when in want of
funds. These he would sell at five shillings apiece; and would
afterwards steal out in the twilight to hear them sung to the
indiscriminate but applauding audience of the Dublin streets.
What was to be done with a genius so unstable, so erratic? Nothing,
apparently, but to let him qualify for orders, and for this he is too
young. Thereupon ensues a sort of 'Martin's summer' in his changing
life,--a disengaged, delightful time when 'Master Noll' wanders
irresponsibly from house to house, fishing and flute-playing, or, of
winter evenings, taking the chair at the village inn. When at last the
moment came for his presentation to the Bishop of Elphin, that prelate,
sad to say, rejected him, perhaps because of his college reputation,
perhaps because of actual incompetence, perhaps even, as tradition
affirms, because he had the bad taste to appear before his examiner in
flaming scarlet breeches. After this rebuff, tutoring was next tried.
But he had no sooner saved some thirty pounds by teaching, than he threw
up his engagement, bought a horse, and started once more for America, by
way of Cork. In six weeks he had returned penniless, having substituted
for his roadster a sorry jade, to which he gave the contemptuous name of
Fiddleback. He had also the simplicity to wonder, on this occasion, that
his mother was not rejoiced to see him again. His next ambition was to
be a lawyer; and, to this end, a kindly Uncle Contarine equipped him
with fifty pounds for preliminary studies. But on his way to London he
was decoyed into gambling, lost every farthing, and came home once more
in bitter self-abasement. Having now essayed both divinity and law, his
next attempt was physic; and, in 1752, fitted out afresh by his
long-suffering uncle, he started for, and succeeded in reaching,
Edinburgh. Here more memories survive of his social qualities than of
his studies; and two years later he left the Scottish capital for
Leyden, rather, it may be conjectured, from a restless desire to see the
world than really to exchange the lectures of Monro for the lectures of
Albinus. At Newcastle (according to his own account) he had the good
fortune to be locked up as a Jacobite, and thus escaped drowning, as the
ship by which he was to have sailed to Bordeaux sank at the mouth of the
Garonne. Shortly afterwards he arrived in Leyden. Gaubius and other
Dutch professors figure sonorously in his future works; but whether he
had much experimental knowledge of their instructions may be doubted.
What seems undeniable is, that the old seduction of play stripped him of
every shilling; so that, like Holberg before him, he set out
deliberately to make the tour of Europe on foot. 'Haud inexpertus
loquor,' he wrote in after days, when praising this mode of locomotion.
He first visited Flanders. Thence he passed to France, Germany,
Switzerland, and Italy, supporting himself mainly by his flute, and by
occasional disputations at convents or universities. 'Sir,' said Boswell
to Johnson, 'he 'disputed' his passage through Europe. ' When on the 1st
February, 1756, he landed at Dover, it was with empty pockets. But he
had sent home to his brother in Ireland his first rough sketch for the
poem of 'The Traveller'.
He was now seven-and-twenty. He had seen and suffered much, but he was
to have further trials before drifting definitely into literature.
Between Dover and London, it has been surmised, he made a tentative
appearance as a strolling player. His next ascertained part was that of
an apothecary's assistant on Fish Street Hill. From this, with the
opportune aid of an Edinburgh friend, he proceeded--to use an
eighteenth-century phrase--a poor physician in the Bankside, Southwark,
where least of all, perhaps, was London's fabled pavement to be found.
So little of it, in fact, fell to Goldsmith's share, that we speedily
find him reduced to the rank of reader and corrector of the press to
Samuel Richardson, printer, of Salisbury Court, author of 'Clarissa'.
Later still he is acting as help or substitute in Dr. Milner's
'classical academy' at Peckham. Here, at last, chance seemed to open to
him the prospect of a literary life. He had already, says report,
submitted a manuscript tragedy to Richardson's judgement; and something
he said at Dr. Milner's table attracted the attention of an occasional
visitor there, the bookseller Griffiths, who was also proprietor of the
'Monthly Review'. He invited Dr. Milner's usher to try his hand at
criticism; and finally, in April, 1757, Goldsmith was bound over for a
year to that venerable lady whom George Primrose dubs 'the 'antiqua
mater' of Grub Street'--in other words, he was engaged for bed, board,
and a fixed salary to supply copy-of-all-work to his master's magazine.
The arrangement thus concluded was not calculated to endure. After some
five months of labour from nine till two, and often later, it came
suddenly to an end. No clear explanation of the breach is forthcoming,
but mere incompatability of temper would probably supply a sufficient
ground for disagreement. Goldsmith, it is said, complained that the
bookseller and his wife treated him ill, and denied him ordinary
comforts; added to which the lady, a harder taskmistress even than the
'antiqua mater' above referred to, joined with her husband in 'editing'
his articles, a course which, hard though it may seem, is not
unprecedented. However this may be, either in September or October,
1757, he was again upon the world, existing precariously from hand to
mouth. 'By a very little practice as a physician, and very little
reputation as a poet [a title which, as Prior suggests, possibly means
no more than author], I make a shift to live. ' So he wrote to his
brother-in-law in December. What his literary occupations were cannot be
definitely stated; but, if not prepared before, they probably included
the translation of a remarkable work issued by Griffiths and others in
the ensuing February. This was the 'Memoirs of a Protestant, condemned
to the Galleys of France for his Religion', being the authentic record
of the sufferings of one Jean Marteilhe of Bergerac, a book of which
Michelet has said that it is 'written as if between earth and heaven. '
Marteilhe, who died at Cuylenberg in 1777, was living in Holland in
1758; and it may be that Goldsmith had seen or heard of him during his
own stay in that country. The translation, however, did not bear
Goldsmith's name, but that of James Willington, one of his old
class-fellows at Trinity College.
