Part 28

The front, including a wing, extends, as nearly as could be judged by passing it, sixty-eight feet by a depth of twenty-four; it consisted of two stories, with five windows in each. The roof has been off for a period of twenty years: the gable-ends remain, but the front and back walls of the upper story have crumbled away, and if the hand of the destroyer be not stayed, will soon wholly disappear. Two or three wretched cottages for laborers, surrounded by mud, adjoin it on the left. Behind the house is an orchard of some extent, and the remains of a garden, both utterly neglected. In fact, a pretty avenue of double rows of ash-trees, which formed the approach from the high road, about sixty yards distant, and at one time presented an object of interest to travelers, has, like every other trace of care or superintendence, disappeared--cut down by the ruthless hand of some destroyer. No picture of desolation can be more complete. As if an image of the impending ruin had been present, the poet has painted with fearful accuracy what his father's house was to be:

'Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose.'"

Little can be added to that account. There still stands the long, white ruin of the house which sheltered Goldsmith as a boy, at the right-hand end one tall gable and chimney remaining aloft, the other having, since Mr. Prior's visit, fallen in. At the left hand, near the house, still remains _one_ of the wretched cottages he mentions. I went into it. The floor of mud was worn into hollows, in which geese were sitting in little pools. There was a dresser on one side, with a few plates laid on it; a few chairs of a rudeness of construction such as no Englishman who has not visited an Irish cabin has any conception of; and the interior of the roof, for ceiling it had none, was varnished into a jetty brilliancy with the smoke.

Behind the ruins of the house there are still the orchard and wild remains of a garden, inclosed with a high, old stone wall. One could imagine this retreat a play-place for the embryo poet, whose charm would long linger in his memory; and, in truth, when the house was complete, with its avenue of ashes, along which you looked to the highway, and thence across a valley to the church of Kilkenny West, on a hill about a mile distant, the abode of Goldsmith's boyhood must have been a very pleasant one. It is now seen as stripped of all its former attractions, its life, its completeness as a house, its trees; and stands a white, bare, and solitary ruin.

Many people think, that as Goldsmith's father was the clergyman, this was the parsonage. It was not so. The parsonage was at Kilkenny West, where the present rector resides. This house was attached to the farm which the pastor had here, and was probably a much better and more commodious dwelling than the parsonage.

Returning to the village--if three or four poor cottages by the roadside can deserve that name--the public house is the object which attracts your attention. This is said to be the very house of which Goldsmith speaks in The Deserted Village. Goldsmith, however, tells you himself, in The Deserted Village, that the public house, among others, was destroyed:

"Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where graybeard mirth and smiling toil retired," &c.

In fact, it was rebuilt by Mr. Hogan, a gentleman living near, who, being an ardent admirer of Goldsmith's poetry, did all that he could to restore to Lissoy the characteristics of Auburn. He rebuilt the public house on the spot where tradition placed the old one, with the traditionary thorn in front. He gave it the sign of "The Jolly Pigeons," he supplied it with new copies of "The Twelve Good Rules," and "The Royal Game of Goose;" he went even to the length of the ludicrous in his zeal for an accurate _fac-simile_ of the genuine house, and

"Broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show, Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row."

These, to perpetuate them, were fast imbedded in the mortar--but in vain; relic-hunters knocked them out, fictitious as they were, and carried them off as genuine. The very sign did not escape this relic mania--it is no longer to be seen; nor, I suppose, were a new one to be set up, would it long remain. The new "Twelve Good Rules," and new "Royal Game of Goose," have gone the same way; and there is no question that a brave trade in such things might be carried on with what Goldsmith calls "the large family of fools," if a supply were kept here. The very thorn before the door has been cut down piecemeal, and carried off to all quarters of the world. In 1830, Mr. Prior, when visiting the place, making inquiries for Goldsmith's biography, observed that "a tender shoot had again forced its way to the surface, which he, in emulation of so many other inconsiderate idlers, felt disposed to seize upon as a memorial of his visit; but which, if permitted to remain, though this is unlikely, may renew the honors of its predecessor." Vain hope! there is not an atom of it left! He himself tells us, that "every traveler thither for forty years had carried away a portion of the tree, as a relic either of the poem or of his pilgrimage; when the branches had been destroyed, the trunk was attacked; and when this disappeared, even the roots were dug up, so that, in 1820, scarcely a vestige remained, either above or below ground, notwithstanding a resident gentleman had built a wall round it, to endeavor to prevent its extermination." There is now neither vestige of tree, root, nor wall. I suppose the rage of relicism has carried off the very stones that had stood on so hallowed a spot. There is still a slight mound left, or rather made, to mark the spot where the thorn stood.

The public house presents not a resemblance to Goldsmith's picture in his poem. The road from Ballymahon runs right toward this house. On arriving at it, the house stands on the further side of the road, facing you and the Ballymahon highway. Another road runs at right angles, that is, parallel with the house, so that it stands at what is usually called "where three roads meet." The road on your right hand runs down to the village; and some space is left in front of the house, the stone wall on your right, which fences in the field, being carried in a circular sweeping, instead of coming up to an abrupt corner. On the space left by this arrangement, on the side of the road, and directly opposite to the house, stood the tree. But how different is the house itself to that whose delightful picture your imagination has carried away from the page of the poet!

"Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where graybeard mirth and smiling toil retired. Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. Imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlor splendors of that festive place; The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnished clock that clicked behind the door; The chest contrived a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day. The pictures, placed for ornament and use, The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose. The hearth, except when winter chilled the day, With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay, While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show, Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row. Vain, transitory splendor! could not all Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall! Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour's importance to the poor man's heart; Thither no more the peasant shall repair To sweet oblivion of his daily care; No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear; The host himself, no longer to be found, Careful to see the mantling bliss go round; Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed, Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest."

These are all the attractive characteristics of a nice old village public house in England. Clean, quiet, sweet, and breathing of the olden time. They are characteristics professedly gathered by the poet in his rural rambles in England, where he had lived at least twenty years when he wrote the poem. In his preface he talks of these "country excursions for four or five years past," in which he had "taken all possible pains" to be correct in his details. Where, indeed, did any one see in an Irish country ale-house "the parlor splendors of a festive place;" "the whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor;" "the varnished clock that clicked behind the door;" "the hearth, except when winter chilled the day, with aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay?" Where does he find the nut-brown ale? They all belong to the healthy, wholesome, well-to-do village ale-house of rural and prosperous England. An Irish village ale-house! What is it? A poor and filthy cabin; the walls of rough stones, the roof often with nothing between it and the floor. The floor! nicely sanded?--a bed of mud, full of holes, in which geese, and ducks, and pigs, are dabbling and wallowing! If floored at all, paved with pebbles, which stand up in heaps by places, and by places are gone, leaving the aforesaid duck-pools and pig-troughs. A parcel of ragged people sprawling on the hearth around the peat fire, the coy maid, a bare-legged, shock-headed body, hard at work in tending the potato kettle, or contending with the ass, the cow, the pigs, that make part of the family. The parlor splendors? Half the house separated by a counter, behind which the landlord stands, amid a stock of candles and bread for sale, and dealing out, not the generous nut-brown ale, but the deadly liquid fire called whisky. Such are the almost universal attributes of a village ale-house in Ireland. Goldsmith knew better than to draw on his memory for them; he turned to the more poetical scene of the English village ale-house, which, clean as hands could make it, sweet, and all that he describes, had charmed him in his numerous rural excursions in this country.

The Three Jolly Pigeons is just a regular Irish ale-house, or, rather, whisky-shop. On going in, you look in vain for the picture Goldsmith has so beautifully drawn. The varnished clock clicking behind the door, the pictures placed for ornament and use, the twelve good rules, the royal game of goose, where are they? Not there; but in many an old-fashioned hamlet of England. The mud floor, the dirty walls, the smell of whisky, these are what meet you. You look for "the parlor splendors," and on your left hand there is, for a wonder, a separate room, but it is, as usual, filled with the candles, the herrings, the bread, of the Irish ale-house, and the whisky is doled out over the suspicious counter, instead of the nut-brown ale being brought in the generous foaming cup, to the bright, clean fireside, by the neat and blooming maid.

In all Goldsmith's description of his Auburn, he has clearly blended the Doric charm of the English village and English scenery with the fond boyish memories of his actual native place. He has evidently intended to represent the scene as in England, or, at all events, to make his poem of general application, though he has drawn on his memory for features connected with his native place, and imparted soul and sentiment to it by indulging the feelings of old, affectionate regret. Thus the ale-house, the parsonage, the mill, the brook, the village green, the schoolmaster, the pious clergyman, were all portions of his native place, and actual inhabitants of it, yet mixed with touches from the later observations of his English life. The very circumstance of depopulation, which no doubt had occurred at Lissoy, and had sunk deep into his indignant heart, he tells us, in his dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, was going on in England, and that his description meant to apply to England. "But I know you will object--and, indeed, several of our best and wisest friends concur in the opinion--that the depopulation it deplores is nowhere to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination. To this I can scarcely make any other answer, than that I sincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all possible pains in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I allege, and that all my views and inquiries have led me to believe those miseries real which I here attempt to display."

The fact is only too much a fact. From Goldsmith's time to our own, the process of rural depopulation has been going on, by the absorption of smaller properties into larger ones. The rapid growth of capital in England has created a demand for landed investments, which has tempted the small proprietors to sell the old cottages and crofts. Whole hamlets have disappeared one after another, and ample parks have taken their place, and solitary halls have sprung up where there used to be a long, populous village, buried in its gardens and orchards. As new men, merchants, lawyers, successful speculators, and cits grown wealthy, have carried out these changes, the old aristocracy have withdrawn further and further from the contact of these new erections, and, demolishing the little hamlets, have extended their immense park walls so as to create a vast solitude for themselves, where amid woods and wide fields have stood their proud seats. It were easy to cite almost innumerable instances of this, but in every neighborhood the old inhabitants are living chronicles of all these changes; we need only refer to the general and striking fact developed by our statistics, that about 1770, or in Goldsmith's time, the landed proprietors of England were about 200,000--they are now about 30,000! that is, proprietors of considerable estates; for the proprietors of small lots, on which houses and gardens, or town property stand, amount to about three millions. The proportion of _estates_, however, is as above, and it tells a fearful tale of the conglomeration of landed property during the last seventy years.

What is more strange than the doubt of the progress of rural depopulation in England is, that Mr. Prior, the biographer of Goldsmith, doubts even the justice of his strictures as applied to Ireland. He admits that there appeared to have been some such circumstance at Lissoy in Goldsmith's youth as he has described in The Deserted Village; but he is inclined to palliate it till it becomes a mere trifle. "In November, 1738, a part of the town lands of Lissoy, and the adjoining lands of Cannorstown, to the number of 600 acres, were sold by Jeffery Frend, Esq., of the Middle Temple, to the Honorable Robert Naper, lieutenant-general of his majesty's forces in Ireland, for the sum of £3300, but the general died before the purchase was completed. Upon this property, named Ballybegg, lying behind the house of Mr. Goldsmith, about half a mile distant, Mr. William Naper, son of the general, several years afterward built the family residence, named Littleton. In the preliminary arrangements, some circumstances, probably neither harsh nor unjust in themselves, connected with the removal of part of the tenantry, gave rise in the mind of Goldsmith, morbidly acute in his benevolent feelings, and particularly toward the poorer classes of society, to the idea of The Deserted Village."--Vol. i., p. 18. This, however, does not agree with Mr. Prior's own account of the appearance of the place on his own visit, given at page 257 of vol. ii. "There are, besides, many ruined houses in the neighborhood, bespeaking a better state of population than at present." It as little agrees with Goldsmith's assertion, that the very ale-house of the village was pulled down. Nay, at this very part of Mr. Prior's account (vol. ii., p. 259), he gives a more extended history of Mr. Naper or Napier's transactions; and while he endeavors to persuade us that the tradition of the neighborhood was not to be trusted, he shows that Mr. Naper had 1200 acres of land, a great part of which had been converted into demesne. The story of the neighborhood, as given by himself, is, that Lieutenant-general Robert Naper, returning from Vigo, in Spain, with a large fortune, purchased, as has been stated, the adjoining lands. In erecting a residence, and forming a demesne around it, the habitations of some, as is alleged, respectable tenants and several of the peasantry stood in the way, and being unwilling to remove for his convenience, were at length, after much resistance, all, except the Goldsmith family, ejected for non-payment of rent. Their houses were pulled down, and the park enlarged to a circumference of nine miles; but so great was the indignation of the people at the proceeding, that on the general's death, which occurred soon afterward, they assembled in a tumultuous manner, destroyed most of the property in and around it, and, among other things, plantations to the value of £5000.

What are the reasons assigned by the biographer for doubting the story? His own belief, that "the wanton destruction of a thriving and pretty village, in a country where such are carefully encouraged by all proprietors of lands, is wholly improbable." He farther fancies that Goldsmith's morbid imagination "had converted a few mud cabins into a beautiful village, and, perhaps, their turbulent and vindictive occupants into injured, and innocent, and expatriated peasants." Lastly, and most unfortunately of all, he adds, "Proprietary rights can not always be exercised by landlords in Ireland, even in a reasonable manner, without extreme jealousy on the part of the people. Circumstances, therefore, which daily occur in England, and produce neither concern nor notice, excite in the former loud complaint, if not open hostility. Any thing resembling severity becomes speedily known and loudly censured; and such impressions, however untrue, taken up and acted upon by the imagination and eloquence of a poet, are dangerous assailants of reputation."

The revolting case of the expulsion of the tenants from the estate of the Gerrards, at Ballinasloe, in Ireland, occurring at the moment at which I write this, in which 270 poor people are turned out to the elements, their houses pulled to the ground, themselves chased from the roadside ditches, where they had sought a night's shelter from the piercing wind, and the fires which they had made to warm themselves extinguished--all this is a fearful answer to such writings, and too awful proof of the correctness of the poet's statements. So far from Irish landlords not destroying villages, so far from "any thing like severity" being speedily known and resisted, the inquiries caused by this one flagrant case have shown to the horrified public, that in no country in the world are the rights of the peasantry so totally disregarded; in no country has the outrage of The Deserted Village been so often enacted. The scene which Goldsmith so pathetically describes, of the poor villagers whose homes had been destroyed, whose native haunts had been made to cast them forth, going on toward the shore seeking for an asylum beyond the ocean, was not a solitary scene. It has been reacted again and again. It has been repeated from that hour to this; and every year and almost every day sees sad thousands bidding adieu to their birth-places, and crowding on board the ships that carry them to a more hospitable country:

"Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, That, idly waiting, flaps with every gale, Downward they move, a melancholy band, Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. Contented toil, and hospitable care, And kind, connubial tenderness are there; And piety, with wishes placed above, And steady loyalty, and faithful love."

In five years, it is shown by official documents, that 72,000 persons have been thus cast out of their homes and expatriated, and that the process of this exterminating system has, within twenty years, made outcasts of no less than two millions and a half of peasantry!

Seeing this wholesale depopulation, which has not merely gone on formerly, but is going on at this hour, in the face of all enlightened and humane England, it is quite too late to call in question the truth of the poet's descriptions. We no longer wonder that, in opposition to popular opinion, he stood boldly forward, at the moment that he issued his poem to the world, in assertion of the truth of his descriptions, and we deplore the fact that his noble sentiments have not sooner become national and availing.

Under all these circumstances, Auburn or Lissoy, which you will, will always be visited with enthusiasm by the genuine lovers of purest poetry and of kindly humanity. The visitor will not find all there that he naturally looks for. He will not find the country very beautiful, or the mill, the brook, the ale-house as rural and picturesque as he could wish; but he will find the very ground on which Oliver Goldsmith ran in the happy days of his boyhood; the ruins of the house in which that model of a village preacher--simple, pious, and warm-hearted, justly, indeed, dear to all the country--lived, the father of the poet; the ruins of the house in which the poet himself spent a happy childhood, cherishing under such a parent one of the noblest spirits which ever glowed for truth and humanity; fearing no ridicule, contracting no worldliness, never abating, spite of harsh experience and repeated imposition, one throb of pity or of generous sympathy for the wretched. The ground where such a man was reared is indeed holy. Goldsmith himself, not less than his father and brother, was one of the most genuine Christian preachers that ever lived. The sermons of the father and the brother perished with their hearers, but those of the poet live forever in his writings. And how many of the personal characteristics of "the village preacher," which in his father he celebrates, lived in himself!

"Unpracticed he to fawn or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; For other aims his heart had learned to prize, More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise."

How often did he present this trait in his own life! How zealous he was to help any one that he could; how careless to help himself! Thus, when requested by the minister to say if he could be of any service to him, he said, "Yes, he had a brother, a worthy clergyman, whom he would gladly see promoted." At this time he was in great distress himself. At another time, Lord North sent to him a Dr. Scott, with a _carte blanche_, to induce him to write for the ministry; but Goldsmith was not to be bought. "I found him," said the doctor, "in a miserable set of chambers in the Temple; I told him my authority; I told him that I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions, and, would you believe it! he was so absurd as to say, '_I can earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any party; the assistance, therefore, you offer is unnecessary to me_;' and so I left him," added Dr. Scott, "in his garret."

How completely was this Dr. Primrose! How thoroughly was he the same man in every thing. When his aid was needed by his fellow-man,

"Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began."