Part 4

9. HENRY, SON OF THE REVD. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

(Oliver’s Nephew.)

Henry, the son, Prior describes as “distinguished for spirit, intelligence and personal beauty.... A commission being obtained for him in the army, he quitted Ireland for North America about the year 1782.” A constant friend and correspondent of his, the Revd. Thomas Handcock wrote on 7 October, 1799 (Prior II, 564) that Henry had been a lieutenant in the 54th Regiment, and that “with an uncommon flow of spirits (he) possesses a large portion of his uncle’s genius.” He married an American lady from Rhode Island and “after the peace settled with her somewhere in Nova Scotia.”

“He plunged through unheard of distresses and difficulties until very lately, when accident made our young Prince, the Duke of Kent, acquainted with his person and history: and His Royal Highness lost no time in raising him, a wife and ten children, considerably above want, as I learn by a letter from Goldsmith within these last six weeks. I had ... received his rent and managed his affairs, and in his distresses he often urged me to sell his interest in the Deserted Village [Lissoy] which I continued to avoid, to his present very great satisfaction.”

The particular way in which Henry Goldsmith’s needs were brought under the notice of the Duke of Kent is not recorded, but His Royal Highness had been sent to Canada in 1791, and was Commander-in-Chief of the forces in British North America in 1799-1800. What Mr. Handcock says in his letter is confirmed by an unpublished letter written by Henry’s sister Catherine to Bishop Percy on 6 January, 1802, apropos of her uncle Charles’ statement to the Bishop that “the name is extinct except in his family”:

“He never considered,” said she, “that I had cousins in this country that had male heirs, as also a much lov’d brother now residing at Halifax in North America, who has ten children, and has either four or five sons lawfully by an amiable wife. From my brother’s account, his Children possess uncommon abilities. His eldest son Henry he intends for the Bar: his second son is a midshipman, and his third son Oliver, he mention’d in a letter to me he would have educated in Ireland. The Duke of Kent, my brother’s particular Patron and Friend, has got him the place of Assistant Engineer at Halifax, and means to provide for him in a better way when opportunity offers.”

A letter by Henry Goldsmith to a kinsman dated 20 March, 1808, brings the story of this Nova Scotian family up to a somewhat later date.

“I am fixed here in the Commissariat Department and have a family of nine children, five sons and four daughters. The eldest Henry, follows the profession of the law: Hugh Colvill is I hope ere this, a lieutenant in the Navy: Oliver is with a merchant at Boston: Charles is a midshipman on this station, and Benjamin a boy. The daughters Ann, Catherine, Eliza and Jane are at home with me, and promise to be all I wish them.” (Prior II, 568.)

Hugh Colvill Goldsmith (1789-1841) referred to in his father’s letter, merits a passing mention as being the young sailor who on 8 April, 1824, shocked Cornish susceptibilities by displacing the famous rocking Logan Stone at the Land’s End, and had to arrange for its replacement later in that year (29 October to 2 November) in its original position, which as the weight of the stone is variously given as 60 to 80 tons, was no easy matter. Doubtless because of this foolhardy exploit, he has a niche in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, being in fact the only member of the Goldsmith family other than the poet who is thus honoured. He was born at St. Andrews, New Brunswick, on 2 April, 1789, and was at the time of the Logan Rock incident a Naval Lieutenant in command of the “Nimble” revenue cutter off the coast of Cornwall. He was never promoted, and died at sea off St. Thomas in the West Indies on 8 October, 1841. An incidental reference to Charles Goldsmith (also referred to in his father’s letter of 1808 as a midshipman) shows that he was afterwards a Commander in the Navy. His dates are 1795-1854.

10. CATHERINE, DAUGHTER OF THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

(Oliver’s Niece.)

The facts as to the daughter of Henry Goldsmith are easier to piece together, as Bishop Percy drew up when in London in July, 1800, a memorandum as to her case which has fortunately been preserved in manuscript, and gives incidentally some particulars as to other members of the Goldsmith family.

There are a number of pitiful letters from this poor little lonely and suffering soul addressed to the Bishop at dates ranging from 1794 to March, 1803, with drafts of two of the Bishop’s replies, mercifully modified before despatch, referring to his monetary advances already made to her, and speaking of the “constant source of plague and vexation” which the question of the publication of the _Memoir_ had been to him. The end came in July, 1803, when one McDonnell wrote to the Bishop’s secretary that Catherine had died “after a painful illness to which her dependant and helpless situation must have greatly contributed.” McDonnell had seen to her being decently buried, and thought 8 or 9 guineas would reimburse the total cost. No doubt the Bishop sent him this.

11. MAURICE GOLDSMITH.

(Oliver’s Brother.)

Maurice, the next child of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith after Oliver, was born on 7 July, 1736, and was followed a year later (16 August, 1737) by Charles, and in 1740 by a fourth son John. Maurice was not therefore, as stated erroneously in a note on page 86 of the Percy _Memoir_ “our poet’s youngest brother.” He first emerges from obscurity early in 1770, when he was in his thirty-fourth year, and wrote to Oliver a letter from the Lawder’s house at Kilmore asking for assistance. Oliver’s reply has fortunately been preserved. It bears no date, but Percy ascribes it to “January 1770,” which is about right, as endorsed upon it is Maurice’s receipt dated 4 February, 1770, £15, the amount of a legacy left by Uncle Contarine to Oliver which he made over to his brother (I, 89).

According to Prior (II, 519), Sir Joshua Reynolds undertook after the death of the poet on 4 April, 1774, “to superintend his affairs until the arrival from Ireland of such of his relatives as should be authorised to receive them.” For answer Maurice Goldsmith appeared in London “a plain unlettered man, too homely it seems in appearance and manners to command much consideration from his late brother’s accomplished friends” (Prior II, 524). The still surviving Mrs. Gwyn (the “Jessamy Bride”) told Prior long years after that:

“Being in a small party in the house of Sir Joshua when the latter was summoned downstairs, he returned after a considerable absence and whispered her that he had been below with Goldsmith’s brother, but thinking a little beer or spirits there better adapted to his taste than tea in the drawing room, he had entertained him in what he considered the most appropriate manner. She, with the usual kindness of her sex, thought his behaviour scarcely becoming in the President to so near a relative of his departed friend.” (II, 524.)

Doubtless it was at this time that Sir Joshua gave Maurice the subjoined (undated) note of introduction to the “Revd. Dr. Percy Northumberland House” still preserved amongst the Percy papers:

“Sir Joshua Reynolds’s compliments and begs leave to introduce to Dr. Percy Mr. Goldsmith brother of his late friend Dr. Goldsmith.”

As the next of kin, Maurice was entitled to administer his brother’s affairs, and there is at Somerset House the formal Probate granted on 28 June, 1774, to “Maurice Goldsmith, the natural and lawful brother and next of kin to the said deceased.” As Oliver died in debt, there was nothing for Maurice to administer or receive, and he left London on 10 June, 1774, writing to Mr. Hawes, the apothecary who attended his brother, his “most sincere thanks for your kind behaviour to me since my arrival here,” and for his “care, assiduity and diligence with respect to my brother Doctor Goldsmith.”

No doubt Percy improved the occasion, when Maurice came to see him at Northumberland House with Sir Joshua’s note of introduction in his pocket, by giving him some sound advice, with perhaps a cash contribution on account, and certainly with an admonition to collect all his brother’s letters to members of the family in Ireland that he could manage to pick up. For on 15 July, 1776, Maurice wrote to Percy as under:

July 15, 1776.

Revd. Sir,

When I last had the honour of seeing you at your Chambers in Northumberland House you most kindly told me you wod willingly serve me, I have Sir according to your Order collected in this Country all the Letters and a few anecdotes of my Brother, the late Dr. Goldsmith that I cod procure which I assure you Sir are entirely Jenuine, the Anecdotes wrote by his Sister who ware both inseperable Companions in their youth.

I am much concernd that two of these Letters which I send are not entirely Legibl and that it will cost som pains to make them and the Memoirs fitt for the press; So Dr Sir to your goodness and protection I commit them thoroughly satisfied you will serve the Brother of a Man who really lovd and Esteemd you.

I can assure you Sir I have gon several Miles to collect them and as my circumstances at present are not very affluent a small assistance wod be gratefully accepted, shd any accrue from these papers wich with what my good Friend Sr. Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Garrick promisd to supply, will not be deemd I hope unworthy of yr publication which you and Sir Joshua told me you wod get affected.

I am Sir with the greatest respect Sir your verry Obet. Humble Servant

Maurice Goldsmith

I hope you will do me the honour to let me know if you receivd. these by directing to me at Charles Town near Elphin Ireland.

There is nothing to show that anything definite followed this appeal for money: and perhaps on that account, Maurice next addressed himself to Dr. Johnson, to whom he wrote at Bolt Court an undated letter bearing the Elphin post-mark as under:

“To Doctor Johnson at his house in Bolt Court Fleet Street London.

“I lately had the Honour to receive a letter from my good Friend the Revd. Docr. Percy, who from som Papers I had sent him did intend writing the life of the Late Docr. Goldsmith: he tells me that from the esteem you have had for the poor Docr. you have determind to take the work under your protection and that you had also promised to use your interest with the booksellers to let one impression be printed of all his poetical writings.... Your taking the trouble to write and set of(f) the life of the Docr. by your able judicious and highly esteemed pen will be a lasting honour to his memory and to his Family.”

In a note to the print of Oliver’s letter to Maurice of “January 1770,” Percy gives the following further information about Maurice (p. 86). “Having been bred to no business, he upon some occasion complained to our bard, that he found it difficult to live like a gentleman, on which Oliver begged he would, without delay, quit so unprofitable a trade and betake himself to some handycraft employment. Maurice wisely took the hint, and bound himself apprentice to a cabinet maker. He had a shop in Dublin, when the Duke of Rutland was Lord Lieutenant: who at the instance of Mr. Orde, then principal secretary of state (now Lord Bolton) out of regard to his brother’s memory, made him an inspector of the licences in that city. He was also appointed mace-bearer on the erection of the Royal Irish Academy: both of them places very compatible with his business. In the former he gave proof of great integrity by detecting a fraud committed on the revenue in his department, by which probably he might himself have profited, if he had not been a man of principle. He died without issue, about seven years ago.”

As a matter of fact, Maurice died early in the winter of 1792-3, as appears from a letter written by Dr. Thomas Campbell, who first attempted Oliver’s biography, to the Bishop of Dromore--then in London--on 12 June, 1793 (Nichols’ _Literary Illustrations_, VII, 790). Campbell says: “Alas! poor Maurice, He is to receive no comfort from your Lordship’s labours in his behalf. He departed from a miserable life early last winter, and luckily has left no children: but he has left a widow, and faith a very nice one, who called on me one of the few days I spent in Dublin after Christmas, so that you will not want claimants.”

The numerous letters from Maurice to the Bishop which have been preserved appear to show that he had really made sustained efforts to collect in Ireland such of the original letters written by Oliver to his relatives as were procurable. One such letter, and that of the greatest interest, viz.: the letter written to Uncle Contarine from Leyden in 1754 was not retrieved until nine years after the letter of 15 July, 1776, already quoted, for Maurice writes to the Bishop on 9 June, 1785, “I send your Lordship a letter from my brother to his Uncle Contarine dated from Lydon.”

Vol. VIII of Nichols’ _Literary Illustrations_ (published in 1858) contains at pp. 236-240, extracts from correspondence between the Bishop and Edmund Malone from which it appears that on 16 June, 1785, Percy was urging that the Members of the Club (of which Oliver was an original Member) should show “our regard for the departed Bard by relieving his only brother, and so far as I hear, the only one of his family that wants relief.” (This was by no means the case, as Percy was afterwards to learn by bitter experience.) He wrote again to Malone on 17 October, 1786, “I must entreat you to exert all your influence among the gentlemen of The Club, and particularly urge it on Sir Joshua Reynolds, to procure subscriptions for the relief of poor Maurice Goldsmith, who is suffering great penury and distress being not only poor but very unhealthy.... A guinea a piece from the members of the Club would be a great relief to him.”

Maurice’s subsequent appointment in 1787 as the Mace-bearer to the Royal Irish Academy and his place in the Licence Office appears to have eased somewhat the final years of his chequered life, but when he died in 1792, a new appeal for the Bishop’s help came from his widow, Esther Goldsmith.

11_a_. ESTHER GOLDSMITH, WIDOW OF MAURICE.

All that is known about her is that she is described in a Petition to the Lord Lieutenant (the draft of which in Percy’s writing was left amongst his papers) as “the daughter of a respectable clergyman,” and as “left wholly destitute” by the death of her husband Maurice Goldsmith. She got various grants from a fund in the gift of the Lord Lieutenant known as the Concordatum, and on the last page of Prior’s _Life_ (Vol. II, 576) is a letter from her dated Rushport, Elphin, 19 June, 1793, to Mr. J. C. Walker asking his influence in favour of her appointment as housekeeper to the Royal Irish Academy.

There are two unpublished later letters (1794) from Rushport to Bishop Percy, in one of which Esther wants to know about the subscription to the _Memoir_, and in the other she thanks the Bishop for £15 which she had received from the Concordatum Fund. A later letter dated 17 October, 1801, from Catherine, daughter of the Revd. Henry Goldsmith, to the Bishop seems to show that Esther had remarried. “She thinks she is as well entitled to the money arising from the publication of my Uncle’s works as I am, but there I must beg leave to differ in opinion with her.” Catherine gives some more particulars which she thinks the Bishop ought to know, but “if Mrs. Goldsmith knew the information came to your Lordship through me, ’twou’d bring her tongue upon me, which she can use well.”

12. CHARLES GOLDSMITH.

(Oliver’s Brother.)

Charles Goldsmith (born 1717, died 1805) the youngest but one of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith’s children, comes on the scene earlier than the others. Encouraged by the accounts which had reached Ireland of his brother Oliver’s arrival in England and growing literary fame, he ventured to the Metropolis in the year 1757, and as Northcote says in his _Life of Reynolds_ (I, 332-3): “Having heard of his brother Noll mixing in the first society in London, he took it for granted that his fortune was made, and that he could soon make a brother’s also: he therefore left home without notice: but soon found, on his arrival in London, that the picture he had formed of his brother’s situation was too highly coloured, that Noll could not introduce him to his great friends, and in fact that, although out of a jail, he was often out of a lodging.”

The garret where Goldsmith then wrote and slept is supposed to have been one of the courts near Salisbury Square. His letters were addressed from the neighbouring Temple-exchange coffee-house near Temple Bar, and the secret of the lodging is said to have been won from the coffee-house waiter “George” to whom Charles Goldsmith confided his relationship. (Forster I, 124.)

Thus disappointed, Charles quitted London in a few days, suddenly and secretly as he had entered it, “in a humble capacity it is said, for Jamaica”: whence says Forster (I, 125) “he did not return till after four-and-thirty years to tell this anecdote, and to be described by Malone as not a little like his celebrated brother in person, speech and manner.”

When Charles came back to this country in 1791 it was to arrange for his ultimate settlement with his family in England: but after the peace of Amiens (1802), he sold his house, and with his wife (a Creole), a daughter and a son named Oliver (born in England), migrated to the South of France. In consequence of Buonaparte’s order for detaining British subjects, he again returned to England in 1803 by way of Holland, much reduced in circumstances, and died about 1805 at humble lodgings in Ossulston Street, Somers Town.

In an original letter of Charles himself, dated 2 September, 1795, in the Percy bundle of Goldsmithiana, he says specifically: “I paid in 1791 a visit to my native country: on my arrival I found the greatest part of my relations and old friends had paid the debt of Nature: my brother Maurice remained: he gave me a pleasing account of the great benefits you had been pleased to bestow on him.” As Maurice had died, Charles put in a plea for help for himself in view of the necessity of supporting “a wife and five children.” These were of course the offspring of his Jamaica marriage with a Creole, and Charles said nothing about any former marriage. Percy is not known to have answered the letter: but on 8 December, 1801, Charles made another appeal. Before answering this the Bishop made some cautious enquiries of another member of the family, Catherine, daughter of the Revd. Henry, who was already (since 1794) a candidate for his charity. She replied on 28 December, 1801, that “there are some parts of his [Charles’] letter true, and many others not so. He is indeed a most delightful companion, abounds with wit and humour, and is perfectly the gentleman, but he does not possess the steadiness or benevolent heart that my much respected father or Uncle Oliver did. At the same time I think he has a much better claim than my Uncle Maurice’s widow, for she was left a very handsome fortune of near two hundred a year, and more than a thousand pounds in ready money. I think she has no title at all to receive anything from the sale of the Poems.” Later, Catherine wrote again to the Bishop on 6 January, 1802, saying she had information that her Uncle (Charles) “had a great deal of money in the Funds, that he had some children and the most of them natural children. I assure you, my Lord, he has a great deal of art and duplicity.” Percy wrote Charles in 1802 some sort of letter, which the latter says he never received. This was very possibly the case, in view of his migration to France after the peace of Amiens.

Through the exertions of Edmund Malone, Charles was discovered to be back in London, and he wrote to the Bishop in 1803 some details of his experiences in France, following this up later in 1804 with a fuller statement which is very readable and quite interesting.

The last letter preserved from Charles Goldsmith is dated 24 March, 1805, and is in a shaky hand, saying he is afraid “my poor little son Oliver will soon be left fatherless and without a friend.” Probably Charles died soon after, and according to the letter of a neighbour, Mr. R. C. Roffe, dated 12 February, 1821, “almost in a state of second childhood. His wife, with a son (Oliver) he had by her in England, went to the West Indies”: and according to a quotation given by Prior (II, 574) from a Jamaica newspaper, this Oliver died at Belmont on 21 October, 1828, in the thirty-second year of his age.

It must be added to the above that before Percy had heard from Charles, he had in 1794 received a letter from one John Goldsmith, a sergeant of the South Cork Militia, claiming to be Charles’s son. At first Percy evidently thought the man an impostor. On one of John’s letters the Bishop had pencilled “natural son of Charles Goldsmith,” and has marked as “not true” a story of the marriage of his parents by “my uncle Henry Goldsmith, who was then Rector of the Parish they lived in,” and the reception of such parents by the grandmother Ann Goldsmith and Catherine Hodson his aunt. John told the Bishop on 2 October, 1808, “I did not imagine my father Charles Goldsmith was in existence, as I did not either see or hear from him since I saw your Lordship in Dublin in the year 1793, nor did I ever hear of his being married a second time.” As there are amongst the Percy papers receipts dated in October, 1808, May, 1809, and September, 1810, for a total of £35 in all for money disbursed by the Bishop for the benefit of this John Goldsmith, Percy may have considered there was something in his story after all.

As to what subsequently happened to this John Goldsmith and the eight children on whose behalf he appealed to the generosity of Dr. Percy, there seems to be no information available, but Prior (II, 574) mentions that “a person named Goldsmith, and claiming to be a nephew of the poet, died in the Cholera Hospital in Bristol in 1833: he was in a state of destitution and may have had no just right to the honour he assumed.” He may have been this John Goldsmith, son (legitimate or otherwise) of Charles Goldsmith.

THE PROFITS OF THE PERCY MEMOIR.