,

3.

(7th July, 1736), Charles (16th Au- her success in the task had not gust, 1737), and John (23rd-- been much to boast of, she at 1740), born at Lissoy. The other times admitted. "Never youngest, as the eldest, died in "was so dull a boy: he 1731. youth; Charles went in his twen- seemed impenetrably stu- Æt. tieth year, a friendless adven-"pid," said the good Eliturer, to Jamaica, and after long zabeth Delap, when she bored her self-exile died, soon after the friends, or answered curious enopening of the present century quirers, about the celebrated Doc(1803-4), in a poor lodging in tor Goldsmith. ."He was a plant Somers'-town; Maurice was put "that flowered late," said Johnto the trade of a cabinet-maker, son to Boswell; "there appeared kept a meagre shop in Charles- "nothing remarkable about him town in the county of Roscom- "when he was young."** This, mon, and "departed from a miser- if true, would have been only "able life" in 1792; Henry fol- another confirmation of the saylowed his father's calling, and ing that the richer a nature is, died as he had lived, a humble the more slow its development village preacher and school- is like to be; but, in the meanmaster, in 1768; Catherine mar- ing it would ordinarily bear, it ried a wealthy husband, Mr. may here be of doubtful applicaHodson, Jane a poor one, Mr. tion, for all the charms of GoldJohnstone, and both died in smith's later style are to be Athlone, some years after the traced in even the letters of his death of that celebrated bro- youth, and his sister expressly ther to whose life, adventures, tells us that he not only began and times these pages are de- to scribble verses when he could voted. scarcely write, but otherwise A trusted dependant in Charles showed a fondness for books and Goldsmith's house, a young wo-learning, and what she calls man related to the family, after-"signs of genius." wards known as Elizabeth Delap At the age of six, Oliver and schoolmistress of Lissoy, first was handed over to the put a book into Oliver Gold- village school, kept by Mr. smith's hands. She taught him Thomas Byrne. Looking back his letters; lived till it was matter from this distance of time, and of pride to remember; often penetrating through greater obtalked of it to Doctor Strean, scurity than its own cabin smoke Henry Goldsmith's successor in into that Lissoy academy, it is to the curacy of Kilkenny-west; and

"" ***

1734.

Æt. 6.

at the ripe age of ninety, when *The rev. Edward Mangin's Essay on the great writer had been thir-Light Reading (1808), 144. And see Prior, teen years in his grave, boasted. 22 **Boswell's Life (Ed. 1839), vi. 309. of it with her last breath. That *** Percy Memoir, 4.

be discovered that this excellent also something more and other Mr. Byrne, retired quarter-master than this remained, in the effects of an Irish regiment that had of a terrible disease which asserved in Marlborough's sailed him at the school, and Spanish wars, was more were not likely soon to pass Æt. 6. given to "shoulder a crutch away.

1734.

"and show how fields were won,' 99 An attack of confluent smalland certainly more apt to teach pox that nearly proved mortal wild legends of an Irish hovel, had left deep and indelible traces or hold forth about fairies and on his face, for ever settled his rapparees, than to inculcate what small pretension to good-looks, are called the humanities. Little and exposed him to jest and sarOliver came away from him much casm. Kind-natured Mr. Byrne as he went, in point of learning; might best have reconciled him but there were certain wander- to it, used to his temper as no ing unsettled tastes, which his doubt he had become; and it was friends thought to have been doubly unfortunate to be sent at here implanted in him, and such a time away from home, to which, as well as a taste for song, a school among strangers, at once one of his later essays might to taste the bitterness of 1736. seem to connect with the vagrant those school-experiences life of the blind harper Carolan, which too early and sadly Æt. 8. whose wayside melodies he had teach the shy, ill-favoured, backbeen taken to hear. ** Unhappily ward boy, what tyrannies the strong have to inflict, and what

*See his sister Mrs. Hodson's narrative sufferings the weak must be precontributed to the Percy Memoir, 3, 4. pared to endure. But to the reShe does not give the name of the school-verend Mr. Griffin's superior master, but this was supplied by Dr. Strean. Mangin's Essay, 142.

** Essay xx. Thorlogh O'Carolan, who was born at Nobber in 1670, and brought up at Carrick O'Shannon, where Oliver's uncle Contarine first settled, died in 1738 at Roscommon, to which Contarine had removed. To his patroness in whose

school of Elphin in Roscommon it was resolved to send him; and at the house of an uncle John,* at Ballyoughter in the neighbourhood of Elphin, he was lodged and boarded. ** The knowledge

66

His father's brother, "who, with "his family," Mrs. Hodson tells us, con"sidered him as a prodigy for his age." Percy Memoir, 5.

house he died, the wife of the MacDermott of Aldersford, he owed the "horse, harp, and gossoon," with which, renewed as his needs dictated, he had meanwhile wandered about for half a century from house to house, a guest always welcome, improvising music and **At the age of seven or eight," says songs. The harp had been his amuse- Mrs. Hodson, "he discovered a natural ment up to the age of manhood, when,"turn for rhyming, and often amused his being struck with blindness, he thus made "father and his friends with early poetiit his profession. For curious anecdotes "cal attempts. When he could scarcely of Carolan, and other Irish poets, see "write legibly, he was always scribbling Nichols's Illustrations of Lit. Hist. of "verses which he burnt as he wrote XVIIIth Century, VII. 688. "them. Observing his fondness for books

1737.

Æt. 9.

of Ovid and Horace, introduced to of him that he had the most unhim here, was the pleasantest as accountable alternations of gaiety well as the least important, and gloom, and was subject to the though it might be by far the most particular humours, most difficult, of what he had even so his elder sister denow to learn. It was the learn- scribed his school-days to ing of bitter years, and not taught Doctor Percy, bishop of Droby the schoolmaster but by the more, when that divine and his school-fellows of this poor little, friends were gathering materials thick, pale-faced, pock-marked for his biography. That he seemed boy. "He was considered by his to possess two natures, was the "contemporaries and school-fel- comment on both his childhood "lows, with whom I have often and his manhood; and there "conversed on the subject," said was sense in it, so far as it repreDoctor Strean, who succeeded, sented the continued struggle, on the death of Charles Gold- happily always unavailing, carsmith's curate and eldest son, to ried on against feelings that God his pastoral duty and its munifi- had given him by fears he had cent rewards, as a stupid, heavy to thank the world for. "blockhead, little better than a "fool, whom every one made fun "of."**

66

66

"Why Noll!" exclaimed a visitor at uncle John's, "you are become a fright! When do you This was early to trample fun "mean to get handsome again?" out of any one; and Oliver bore Oliver moved in silence to the marks of it to his dying day. It window. The speaker, a reckhad not been his least qualifica- less and notorious scapegrace of tion as game for laughter, that all the Goldsmith family, repeated confessed his nature to be kind and affectionate, and knew his temper to be cheerful and agreeable; but feeling as well as fun he could hardly be expected to supply unintermittingly, and, precisely as in after years it was said

the question with a worse sneer: and "I mean to get better, sir, "when you do!"** was the boy's

"Oliver was from his earliest in

"fancy," writes his sister to Dr. Percy, "very different from other children, sub"ject to particular humours, for the most 'part uncommonly serious and reserved, "but when in gay spirits none ever so "and learning, his mother, with whom "agreeable as he." Percy Memoir, 4. "he was always a favourite, pleaded with "He was such a compound of absurdity, "his father to give him a liberal educa-"envy, and malice, contrasted with the "tion: but his own narrow income, the expense attending the education of his "eldest son, and his numerous family, "were strong objections." Percy Memoir, 4, 5.

46

*See Appendix (A. "DR. STREAN AND "THE REV. EDWARD MANGIN") at the close of this volume.

** Mangin's Essay, 149,

"opposite virtues of kindness, generosity, "and benevolence," says Mr. Thomas Davies (who, bad actor as he was, seems to have been a worse philosopher), "that "he might be said to consist of two dis"tinct souls, and influenced by the 'agency of a good and bad spirit," Life of Garrick, II. 147-8.

66

** Prior, 1. 29, 30,

1737.

and other friends, shows ample traces of

"In

retort, which has delighted his on which the subsequent biobiographers for its quickness of graphies have been founded: repartee. It was probably someled to an angry dispute on its being thing more than smarthanded to the publishers of the Miscelness. Another example of laneous Works. Other causes of disagreeFt. 9. precocious wit occurred ment sprang up afterwards with Mr. also at uncle John's, when his Rose (Cowper's friend), employed as their editor, and Percy ultimately denephew was still a mere child. clined to sanction the publication. His There was company one day, to correspondence with Steevens, Malone, a small dance; and the fiddler en-this quarrel, and of his dissatisfaction gaged on the occasion, thinking with Mr. Rose, whom he accuses of imhimself entitled to assume the pertinently tampering with the Memoir. "I never," writes Malone to Percy, in airs of a wit, was made conscious corroboration of such complaints, obsuddenly of an Oliver to his Row-"served any of those grimaces or fooleries land for which he was wholly un- 'that the interpolator talks of!" prepared. During a pause be-going over Goldsmith's life," writes Dr. Anderson to Percy, "I will thank you to tween two country dances, the "point out the particular passages which party had been greatly surprised were thrust into your narrative." by little Noll quickly jumping up, tially, however, the narrative doubtless Nichols's Illustrations, VII. 213. Substanand dancing impromptu a pas seul remained in its leading details what it is about the room; whereupon, seiz- stated to be in the advertisement, ing the opportunity of the lad's "posed from the information of persons who were intimate with the poet at an ungainly look and grotesque "early period, and who were honoured figure, the jocose fiddler promptly "with a continuance of his friendship till "the time" of his death. For proof of exclaimed, "Æsop!" A burst Percy's unceasing reference to it as the of laughter rewarded him, which authentic account of Goldsmith, even however was rapidly turned the after its interpolation by Rose, other way by Noll stopping his Nichols's Illustrations, VII. 102, where he hornpipe, looking round at his In a letter to Mr. Nichols (Illustrations, assailant, and giving forth, in vi. 584), Percy also expressly describes it audible voice and without hesita-as compiled under his direction. I refer to it throughout my volume, therefore, as tion, the couplet thought worth the Percy Memoir; and in an Appendix to preserving as the first formal the second volume of this biography effort of his genius by Percy,WHAT WAS PROPOSED AND WHAT WAS Malone, Campbell, and the rest" SMITH"), I have entered more largely who compiled that biographical preface to the Miscellaneous Works

*

com

see

recommends it to Dr. Anderson's notice.

"DONE FOR THE RELATIVES OF GOLD

into the delays and disputes connected

with its composition. It should be added that many of the materials for a life which Percy had obtained from GoldThe biographical preface, or Memoir, smith himself, were lost by being infor which the materials had been col- trusted to Johnson, when the latter prolected by Percy, Malone, and other posed to be his friend's biographer; and friends, was drawn up in the first in- some were lost by Percy himself. But stance by Percy's friend, Dr. Campbell; the failure of Johnson's design arose less it then received ample correction from from his own dilatoriness than from a difPercy, whose interlineations were en-ficulty started by Francis Newbery's surgrafted into the text; but circumstances viving partner (Carnan, the elder New

Heralds! proclaim aloud! all saying, See Esop dancing, and his Monkey playing.*

1738.

descent upon an orchard, or a game of fives or foot-ball, to purge unhealthy humours and out the mind."

Æt. 10.

Yet these things may "clear stand for more than quick- There was no old dairy- 1738. Æt. 10. ness of repartee. It is maid, no Peggy Golden, to even possible that the secret beguile childish sorrows, or, as might be found in them, of much he tells us in one of his essays, to in Goldsmith which has been sing him into pleasant tears with harshly characterised as vanity. Johnny Armstrong's Last Good It may have been that; but it Night, or the Cruelty of Barbara sprang from a source very sel- Allen. It was his ardent wish, dom connected with any of the as he grew to manhood, to be on ordinary forms of personal con- good terms with the society ceit. Fielding describes a class around him; and, finding it esof men who feed upon their own sential first of all to be on good hearts; who are egotists, as he terms with himself, he would says, the wrong way; and if Gold- have restored by fantastic dress smith was vain, it was the wrong and other innocent follies what way. It arose, not from over- his friends till then had done weening self-complacency in sup- their best to banter him out of. posed advantages, but from what It was to no purpose he made the world had forced him since the attempt. So unwitting a conhis earliest youth to feel, intense trast to gentleness, simplicity, uneasy consciousness of sup- and an utter absence of disguise posed defects. His resources of in his real nature, could but make boyhood went as manhood came. an absurdity the more. "Why, There was no longer the cricket-"what wouldst thou have, dear match, the hornpipe, an active "Doctor!" said Johnson, laughing at a squib in the St. James's bery's son-in-law), who held the copy- Chronicle which had coupled himright of She Stoops to Conquer, and who self and his friend as the pedant refused to join the other possessors of Goldsmith's writings in the "Edition and and his flatterer in Love's Labour's "Memoir" which Johnson had under- Lost, and at which poor Goldtaken. "I know he intended to write smith was fretting and foam"Goldsmith's Life," says Malone, "for I collected some materials for it by his ing; "who the plague is hurt "with all this nonsense? and * In proof that they missed, neverthe-"how is a man the worse I wonless, the correct version of what they "der, in his health, purse, or thought so clever, I have quoted the couplet as above (of which the first line "character, for being called Hois tamely given in the Percy Memoir, 5"Our herald hath proclaimed this saying ") from Mr. Shaw Mason's Statistical Ac

"desire."

count, III. 359.

"lofernes?" "How you may re"lish being called Holofernes," replied Goldsmith, "I do not "know;

but I do not like at least