Part 3

Sir James Prior was ignorant of the existence of this Memorandum, when preparing his _Life of Goldsmith_ (Murray, 1837): but with his praiseworthy carefulness, he set about whilst he was in Ireland in the early part of the nineteenth century to dig up such particulars as he could discover about Oliver’s parentage; and what he says concerning “the Goldsmith Family” in his first Chapter is the fullest and most authoritative history of the poet’s forebears that was capable of being written within half a century of Goldsmith’s death and with the information at that time available.

It is not necessary for present purposes to go further back than Oliver’s grandfather, whose name was Robert Goldsmith of Ballyoughter (not John, as in Dr. Percy’s Statement). The following facts are known about this ancestor of the poet.

1. ROBERT GOLDSMITH OF BALLYOUGHTER.

(Oliver’s Grandfather.)

Robert, elder of two sons of the Revd. John Goldsmith, of Newton, Co. Meath, and Jane Madden, of Donore, Co. Dublin, does not appear to have gone to College or to have exercised any profession. He “married Catherine, daughter of Thomas Crofton, D.D., Dean of Elphin, and settled down at Ballyoughter, near the residence of his father-in-law” (Prior I, 5). By his wife, “who enjoyed a moderate fortune, he had a family of thirteen children, nine sons and four daughters.” Several of them died young. John, the eldest son of Robert, “who had been educated at Trinity College preparatory to studying for the bar, settled down on the family property at Ballyoughter” (Prior I, 5). The second son Charles, who also went to Trinity College, was the father of the poet (_see_ § 2). One of the daughters, Jane, married the Rev. Thomas Contarine of Oran (_see_ § 4).

2. THE REVD. CHARLES GOLDSMITH.

(Oliver’s Father.)

Charles Goldsmith entered Trinity College as a pensioner on the 16 June, 1707. He was described in the Register as born and educated “prope Elphin,” as the son of Robert, and as aged 17. He was born therefore in 1690. His earlier career is obscure, but in a family Bible he is described as “Charles Goldsmith of Ballyoughter” (the family residence) and as “married to Mrs. Ann Jones ye 4th of May 1718” (Prior I, 14), when therefore he was 28 years of age. “This union was not approved by the friends of either: he was destitute of the means of providing for a family, and the father of his wife having a son and three other daughters to provide for, her portion was small” (Prior I, 7). Ann Jones was daughter of the Revd. Oliver Jones of Smith Hill, master of the diocesan school at Elphin, where Charles had received his preliminary education, and where the attachment commenced. Her uncle, named Green, who was rector of Kilkenny West, provided the young couple with a house about six miles distant from himself, at a place called Pallas, in the adjoining county of Longford. “Here they took up their abode, and continued for a period of twelve years [1718 to 1730], Mr. Goldsmith officiating partly in the church of his uncle, and partly in the parish in which he resided.” At Pallas therefore five of their eight children (including Oliver) were born: the other three were born at Lissoy, to which the family removed in 1730, when Charles Goldsmith, by the death of his wife’s uncle, succeeded to the Rectory of Kilkenny West.

The family Bible referred to by Prior (I, 14) records the names and dates of birth of the several children as under: _Margaret_, born 22 August, 1719 (of whom nothing seems to be known); _Catherine_, born 13 January, 1721, married to Daniel Hodson (_see_ § 5); _Jane_, born 9 February, 17[4] (_see_ § 6); _Henry_, born 9 February, 17[4] (_see_ § 7); _Oliver_, born 10 November, 1728; _Maurice_, born 7 July, 1736 (_see_ § 11); _Charles_, born 16 August, 1737 (_see_ § 12); _John_, 1740 (to whom there is only the briefest reference in Oliver’s letter to his uncle Contarine written from Edinburgh at the close of 1753 and first printed by Prior in 1837 (I, 154): “How is my poor Jack Goldsmith? I fear his disorder is of such a nature he won’t easily recover.” He is said by Percy (MS. statement) to have “died young _aet._ 12.”)

The loveable character of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith has been depicted for all time in incomparable language in his wayward son’s works. He is the father of “the man in black” of “the Citizen of the World,” the preacher in “The Deserted Village” and Dr. Primrose in “the Vicar of Wakefield.” He died suddenly early in 1747 in the fifty-seventh year of his age (Prior I, 73), the induction of his successor, the Revd. Mr. Wynne, taking place in March of that year.

“Remote from towns he ran his goodly race Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change, his place.”

3. ANN GOLDSMITH, _née_ JONES.

(Oliver’s Mother.)

The death of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith in 1747 made a considerable change for the worse in the fortunes of his widow and her children.

“The wealth of the family, never great or well husbanded, necessarily suffered a serious diminution: the means of the widow were little more than sufficient to provide the necessaries of life for the other branches of the family: remittances to Oliver therefore ceased, and his prospects became darker than ever” (Prior I, 73, 74).

Ann Goldsmith had to remove in her straitened circumstances to a cottage at Ballymahon, and there Oliver seems to have idled away his time between 1749 to 1751, when he drifted off with the intention of going to America. Probably things were not made very comfortable for him at home. Anyhow the mother appears to have been disgusted and disappointed at his waywardness, and spoke to him sharply when he returned penniless. He does not seem to have again resided at Ballymahon, but to have gone to stay with his brother Henry, and afterwards with his constant friend and benefactor, Uncle Contarine, before he went off to Edinburgh, never to see his mother again. When writing from the Scottish capital on 16 September, 1753, to his boon companion, Robert Bryanton of Ballymahon, Oliver says in a postscript: “Give my service to my mother if you see her: for as you express it in Ireland, I have a sneaking kindness for her still.” After his return from his Continental wanderings, he writes twice to his brother-in-law Daniel Hodson about his mother. On 27 December, 1757, he says: “My mother too has lost Pallas! My dear Sir, these things give me real uneasiness, and I should wish to redress them.” And in November, 1758, he writes to Hodson: “Pray tell me how my mother is since she will not gratify me herself and tell me if in anything I can be immediately serviceable to her.” (This and other similar phrases in the letters of 1757 and 1758 are omitted from the 1801 publication as relating to “private family affairs.”) In Oliver’s letter to his brother Henry of February, 1758, he says: “My mother I am informed is almost blind: even tho I had the utmost inclination to return home, I could not behold her in distress without a capacity of relieving her from it, it would be too much to add to my present splenetic habit.”

Later still in January, 1770, Oliver begs his brother Maurice to give him particulars about the family: “Tell me about my mother, my brother Hodson and his son, ... what is become of them, where they live and what they do.” Mrs. Goldsmith died in Ireland later in the same year, and in Mr. William Filby’s tailor’s bills against Goldsmith is the entry of £5:12:0 for “a suit of mourning” (doubtless for her) dated 8 September, 1770 (Prior I, 233).

4. THE CONTARINES.

(Oliver’s Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin.)

As already stated, one of the daughters of Robert Goldsmith named Jane married the Revd. Thomas Contarine, Vicar of Oran. She bore him a daughter Jane, the playmate of Oliver’s childhood, and died in her sixty-third year on the 12 June, 1744 (Prior I, 55, note). “Uncle Contarine” was the best, kindest and most consistent friend of Oliver Goldsmith in his boyhood and student days; and Oliver had a deep sense of gratitude to him. He wrote to Contarine two letters from Edinburgh in 1753 (printed in Prior I, 145 and 154), and a third letter from Leyden in 1754, which is fortunately preserved.

The following incident, illustrative of Oliver’s affection for his generous uncle, is copied into the Memoir of 1801 (page 33) from Percy’s own manuscript. Oliver had borrowed some money from an Irish friend at Leyden “with which he determined to quit Holland and to visit the adjacent countries. But unfortunately his curiosity led him to view a garden, where the choicest flowers were reared for sale. Poor Goldsmith, recollecting that his uncle was an admirer of such rarities, without reflecting on the reduced state of his own finances, was tempted to purchase some of these costly flower roots to be sent as a present to Ireland, and thereby left himself so little cash that he is said to have set out on his travels with only one clean shirt and no money in his pocket.”

Later Oliver wrote to Contarine’s daughter, Mrs. Lawder, on 15 August, 1758, from the Temple Exchange Coffee House an affectionate letter apologising for his long silence, but explaining that he wrote to Kilmore from Leyden, Louvain and Rouen and received no answer, and referring thus to his uncle: “he is no more that soul of fire as when I once knew him. His mind was too active an inhabitant not to disorder the feeble mansion of its abode, for the richest jewels soonest wear their settings. Yet who but a fool would lament his condition, he now forgets the calamities of life, perhaps indulgent heaven has given him a foretaste of that tranquillity here which he so well deserves hereafter.”

Mr. Contarine died a few months after the date of this letter, aged about 74, and left Oliver a legacy of £15, which he eventually made over to his impecunious brother Maurice. In announcing this decision (in January, 1770) Oliver says to Maurice: “The kindness of that good couple to our poor shattered family demands our sincerest gratitude, and though they have almost forgot me yet if good things at last arrive, I hope one day to return, and encrease their good humour by adding to my own. I have sent my cousin Jenny [Mrs. Lawder] a miniature picture of myself as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer.”

Contarine’s daughter Jane married James Lawder, a well-to-do resident of Kilmore, near Carrick on Shannon. To her Oliver addressed on 15 August, 1758, the affectionate letter already quoted dwelling on the past and signing himself “Your affectionate and obliged Kinsman.” It seems to have provoked no reply.

The end of the Lawders was tragic. The husband was treacherously murdered by his servants and labourers, who carried off the plate in the house and about £300 in money. For this crime no less than six of them were executed. The wife, who narrowly escaped being murdered also, died in Dublin about 1790 (Prior I, 130, note).

5. CATHERINE GOLDSMITH (MRS. DANIEL HODSON).

(Sister of Oliver.)

Catherine was born 13 January, 1721. It was her private marriage with Daniel Hodson, “the son of a gentleman of good family residing at St. John’s near Athlone,” who was at the time of the engagement a pupil of Henry Goldsmith, that led to Oliver’s entering Trinity College as a sizar instead of as a pensioner like Henry. Her father, the Revd. Charles Goldsmith, was greatly indignant at this marriage, and in order to give his daughter a marriage portion of £400, sacrificed his tithes and rented land.

To his brother-in-law Hodson, Oliver wrote two very cordial letters on 27 December, 1757, and November, 1758, the second containing a paragraph: “Dear Sister, I wrote to Kilmore (the residence of the Lawders). I wish you would let me know how that family stands affected with regard to me.” It is curious that in Oliver’s letter to Maurice of January, 1770, he does not ask after his sister Catherine, though he enquires about “my mother, my brother Hodson and his son, my brother Harry’s son and daughter” and other members of the family. After Oliver’s death, however, Catherine Hodson, appealed to by Maurice, wrote out a full and very sympathetic account, running to twelve foolscap pages, of Oliver’s youthful adventures, terminating with his being sent to Edinburgh in 1753 “for the studdy of Physick. From this date I am a stranger to what happened him: he wrote severall letters to his friends from Switzerland, Germany and Italy.”

With reference to Oliver’s enquiry quoted above as to “my Brother Hodson and his son,” it may be mentioned that the poet befriended this nephew in London in 1772 to the extent of allowing him to run up a bill for £35:3:0 with his tailor William Filby. It is to be feared this bill was still unpaid at Oliver’s decease (Forster II, 173).

6. JANE GOLDSMITH, AFTERWARDS JOHNSON.

(Born 9 February, 1722. Sister of Oliver.)

As the family Bible entries from which were copied into Prior’s _Life_ (I, 14) gave as the date of the births of Henry and Jane Goldsmith the same day 9 February, 17-- (leaf torn), Forster surmised and with much plausibility that they were twins, born on the 9 February, 1722 (I, 9). Jane married one Johnson, a farmer at Athlone, and appears to have written to Oliver in 1769 about her impoverished condition, which Oliver in his letter to Maurice of January, 1770, regrets his inability to relieve.

7. THE REVD. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

(Oliver’s Elder Brother.)

Very little is known about the eldest son of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith, Henry, who was born at Pallas on the 9 February, 1722 (Prior I, 14). He was educated at Dr. Neligan’s school at Elphin, afterwards matriculating at Trinity College, Dublin, on 4 May, 1741 (Prior I, 34, note). He was elected a scholar on Trinity Monday, 1743: “but returning home in the succeeding vacation, flushed probably with his recent triumph, he indulged a youthful passion and married” (Prior I, 35).

All that the Percy Memoir of 1801 (I, 3) says about Henry is: “Of his eldest son the Revd. Henry Goldsmith, to whom his brother dedicated _The Traveller_, their father had formed the most sanguine hopes, as he had distinguished himself both at school and at College, but he unfortunately married at the early age of nineteen: which confined him to a Curacy, and prevented him rising to preferment in the Church.” As he was born at Pallas in February, 1722, Henry must, if this statement be accurate, have become a married man in 1741, about the time he matriculated at Trinity College. There is evidently inaccuracy somewhere as to Henry’s age, and it may be doubted whether his marriage took place before or after his election as a scholar of his College on Trinity Monday, 1743. From some guarded words used by Prior (the most painstaking investigator into the family history) it is possible the marriage was a secret one, as Prior suggests that when it took place “he must have been three years older [than stated above], or have formed this connexion previous to entering the University. To some men this tie becomes a stimulus to exertion: to others it seems a clog upon every effort at rising in life” (I, 35). Prior seems to decide that in Henry’s case it was a clog. He speaks of Henry having “indulged a youthful passion and married,” and continues shortly afterwards: “Finding residence in College no longer eligible, the advantages of his scholarship were sacrificed: he retired, as appears from the college books, to the country: established a school in his father’s neighbourhood: and in this occupation added to that of curate at ‘forty pounds a year,’ though possessed of talents and character, he passed the remainder of life.” (Prior I, 35.)

It is nowhere very clearly stated, that it would seem that Henry acted as curate to his father at Kilkenny West, and perhaps after his father’s death in 1747 he continued in office under the new Rector, the Revd. Mr. Wynne (Prior I, 73). John Forster says (I, 427): “In his early life Dr. Strean succeeded Henry Goldsmith in the curacy of Kilkenny West, which the latter occupied at the period of his death (1768) and as he is careful to tell us, in its emoluments of £40 a year, which was not only his salary but continued to be the same when I [Strean] a successor, was appointed to that parish.”

The two brothers Henry and Oliver had a strong and abiding affection for one another. Oliver had corresponded with his brother whilst he was abroad, though none of his letters have been preserved. Part of _The Traveller_ had been sent to Henry from Switzerland, and when it was completed and published at the end of 1764, the poem was dedicated to him. The opening paragraph contained this sentence: “It will throw a light upon many parts of it when the reader understands that it is addressed to a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year.” And the opening lines of the poem itself contain the familiar phrase:

“Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see, “My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee: “Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain “And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.”

Later on there is the well-known description of the village preacher:

“A man he was to all the country dear, “And passing rich with forty pounds a year.”

There is only one letter from Oliver to Henry known to exist: that addressed “about 1759” to Henry at “Lowfield, near Ballymore in Westmeath Ireland” seeking his assistance in the disposal of copies of his book on “Polite learning” describing his own physical looks, giving Henry advice as to the education of his son, asking about his mother and other members of the family, and ending up: “by telling you what you very well know already, that I am your most affectionate friend and brother Oliver Goldsmith.”

Henry was the subject of Oliver’s solicitude when he was granted an interview with the Earl of Northumberland (Dr. Percy’s friend) who was about to proceed to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. We owe the report of this interview to the unsympathetic pen of Sir John Hawkins in his _Life of Johnson_ (p. 419). In answer to the Earl’s remark that he was going to Ireland and hearing that Goldsmith was a native of that country he would be glad to do him any kindness, Oliver is made to reply: “I would say nothing but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help.” Hawkins’ sour comment was: “thus did this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his fortunes and put back the hand that was held out to assist him.”

The Revd. Henry Goldsmith died at Athlone at the end of May, 1768, at the age of forty-five. A suit of mourning for him ordered of Oliver’s tailor William Filby cost £5:12:6 (Forster II, 113). The brother seems to have at once written a letter of affectionate sympathy with the family--probably to the widow, and to his nephew Henry he sent a separate letter which has only just come to light in North America, having doubtless been preserved till now by descendants of the original recipient. It is now the property of Mr. William Harris Arnold of Nutley, New Jersey, to whose kindness I owe permission for its reproduction:

London, June 7th, 1768.

My dear Henry,

Your dear father’s death has afflicted me deeply. The news of this dreadful event only reached me yesterday and though I have already sent my love and condolences in a letter which you will see I pen this further line to my dear Nephew to express the hope that you and your Brother, young as you both are, will bear yourselves as the sons of such a man should. As to your own future I shall not rest until I hit upon some means of serving you; and it may be that through the influence of some of my friends here you may procure a situation suited to your talents.

Meanwhile attend diligently to your studies, neglect nothing that can advance your interest when an opening occurs. Are you still inclined towards a military career? That would necessitate, besides a certain temper and constitution, a considerable sum of ready money. Something, however, might be managed abroad--in the Indies or in America.

Let me hear from you, my dear Henry, and with much love to you both

Believe me, Your affectionate Uncle, Oliver Goldsmith.

Mr. Henry Goldsmith In Care of Mrs. Hodson, Athlone, Ireland.

I find no mention whatever in any document (published or unpublished) that I have come across of a second son of the Revd. Henry. Oliver at the time of his brother’s death was at work on the _Deserted Village_ at a summer retreat in a cottage eight miles from the Edgware Road (Forster II, 124), was visited there in May, 1768, by Cooke, who marks the date as exactly two years before the poem appeared in print (May, 1770), and tells us that the writing of it, and its elaborate revision, extended over the whole interval of twenty-four months.

Is it permissible to suggest that Oliver, with his head full of other things, was a little dubious about the sex of the other child of his brother, and spoke of a son where he should have said daughter? Writing to his brother Maurice in January, 1770, with anxious enquiries about the several members of the family, Oliver says: “Tell me about my mother, my brother Hodson and his son: _my brother Harry’s son and daughter_, my sister Johnson, the family of Ballyoughter, what is become of them, where they live and how they do. You talked of being my only brother, I don’t understand you--Where is Charles?” (_Memoir_, p. 89.)

Here it will be observed, Oliver makes tender enquiries after Henry’s “son and daughter.” He says nothing of the widow or of a second son. In the only letter of Oliver’s to his brother that is now extant, ascribed by Percy to “about 1759,” Oliver thus refers to the son: “The reasons you have given me for breeding your son a scholar are judicious and convincing.... Preach then my dear Sir, to your son not the excellence of human nature nor the disrespect of riches, but endeavour to teach him thrift and economy. Let his poor wandering Uncle’s example be placed in his eyes. I had learned from books to love virtue, before I was taught from experience the necessity of being selfish.”

I quote from the original holograph letter, not from the somewhat bowdlerised version of it that Percy printed in the _Memoir_ of 1801, and that has since been copied in all subsequent biographies.

It remains therefore to consider what happened to those whom Henry left behind him in 1768 of whom there is any record. There was a widow, of whose parentage and maiden name, or of the circumstances of her widowhood nothing seems to be known, his son Henry, and his daughter Catherine.

8. HENRY GOLDSMITH’S WIDOW.

It was in all probability Mrs. Henry Goldsmith of whom Johnson wrote to George Steevens on 25 February, 1777, as recorded by Boswell in Volume III, Chapter III:

“Mr. Steevens ... joined Dr. Johnson in Kind assistance to a female relation of Dr. Goldsmith, and desired that on her return to Ireland she would procure authentic particulars of the life of her relation. Concerning her is the following letter:

“To George Steevens Esq.

“February 25th 1777.

“Dear Sir,

“You will be glad to hear that from Mrs. Goldsmith whom we lamented as drowned, I have received a letter full of gratitude to us all, with promises to make the enquiries which we recommended to her. You will tell the good news,

“I am, Sir, “Your most etc. “Sam Johnson.”

Prior (II, 562) expands this incident, assigning it definitely to the widow of the Revd. Henry, but gives no new facts, except to add that “being but slenderly provided for, she accepted the situation of Matron to the Meath Infirmary at Navan.”