There was not any dared to look forward to the morrow. miserable want, in the long and sordid catalogue, which in its turn and in all its bitterness he did not feel. He had shared the experience of those to whom he makes affecting reference in his Animated Nature, "people who die really of hunger, in "common language of a broken heart;" and when he succeeded at the last, success was but a feeble sunshine on a rapidly approaching decay, which was to lead him, by its flickering light, to an early grave. Self-benefit seems out of the question here, and the way to happiness very distant indeed. But if we look a little closer, we shall see that he has passed through it all with a child-like purity of heart unstained. Much of the misery vanishes when this is known; and when it is remembered that in spite of it the Vicar of Wakefield was written, nay, that without it, in all human probability, a book so delightful and wise could not have been written. Fifty-six years after its author's death, the greatest of Germans recounted to a friend how much he had been indebted to the celebrated Irishman. "It is not to be "described," wrote Goethe to Zelter in 1830, "the effect that "Goldsmith's Vicar had upon me, just at the critical moment "of mental development. That lofty and benevolent irony, that "fair and indulgent view of all infirmities and faults, that "meekness under all calamities, that equanimity under all 'changes and chances, and the whole train of kindred virtues, "whatever names they bear, proved my best education; and in "the end," he added with sound philosophy, "these are the "thoughts and feelings which have reclaimed us from all the "errors of life." 66 And why were they so enforced in that charming book, but because the writer had undergone them all; because they had reclaimed himself, not from the world's errors only but also from its suffering and care; and because his own life and adventures had been the same beautiful romance of the triumph of good over evil. Though what is called worldly success, then, was not attained by Goldsmith, it may be that the way to happiness was yet not wholly missed. The sincere and sad biographer of Savage might have profited by the example. His own benefit he had not successfully "endeavoured," when the gloom of his early life embittered life to the last, and the trouble he had endured was made excuse for a sorrowful philosophy, and for manners that were an outrage to the kindness of his heart. What had fallen to Johnson's lot, fell not less heavily to GoldOf the calamities to which the literary life was then smith's. exposed, "Toil, Envy, Want, the Patron, and the Gaol," none were spared to the subject of these pages. But they found and left him gentle and unspoiled; and though the discipline that taught him charity entailed some personal disadvantage, his genuine unaffectedness and simplicity of heart contributed to every social enjoyment. When his conduct least agreed with his writings, these characteristics did not fail him. What he gained, was others' gain; what he lost, concerned only himself; he suffered pain, but never inflicted it; and it is amazing to think how small an amount of mere insensibility to other people's opinions would have exalted "Doctor" Goldsmith's position in the literary circles of his day. He lost caste because he could not acquire it; and could as little assume the habit of indifference, as trade upon the gravity of the repute he had won. "Admirers in a room," said Northcote, repeating what had been told him by Sir Joshua, "whom his en"trance had struck with awe, might be seen riding out upon "his back." It was hard, he said himself to Reynolds, that fame and its dignities should intercept people's liking and fondness; and for his love of the fondness, he forfeited doubtless not a little of the fame. Walpole. "He does not know "a goose," said Cumberland. "He is an inspired idiot," cried the difference of a turkey from "Sir," shouted Johnson, "he 66 "knows nothing, he has made up his mind about nothing." Few cared to think or speak of him but as little Goldy, honest Goldy; and every one laughed at him for the oddity of his blunders, or the awkwardness of his manners. But I invite the reader to his life and adventures, and to the times they illustrate. No uninstructive explanation may possibly await us there, if together we review each scene, and move among the actors as they play their parts. BOOK THE FIRST. OLIVER AS THE SIZAR, STUDENT, TRAVELLER, APOTHECARY'S JOURNEYMAN, USHER, AND POOR PHYSICIAN. CHAPTER I. School Days and Holidays. 1728 TO 1757. property of the Edgeworths of Edgeworthstown, in the county of Longford, on the 10th of November 1728: a little 1728. more than three years earlier than the date upon his epitaph.* THE marble in Westminster Abbey is correct in the place, but not in the time, of the birth of 1728. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. He afterwards translated the line of his epiwas born at a small old par- taph, "in loco cui nomen Pallas," "at a sonage house (supposed after-"place where Pallas had set her name!" wards to be haunted by the fairies, Gent. Mag. xc. 620. Pilgrims to the birthor good people of the district, journey on foot. "The hamlet," says who could not however save it Macaulay, "lies far from any highroad, from being levelled to the ground) "is often a lake. The lanes would break "on a dreary plain, which in wet weather in a lonely, remote, and almost "any jaunting-car to pieces; and there inaccessible Irish village on the "are ruts and sloughs through which southern banks of the river Inny, "be dragged." Biog. contrib. to Encyclo. "the most strongly built wheels cannot called Pallas* or Pallasmore, the Britt. 51 (1860). place must make the latter part of their * The year of his birth was first cor* Pallas is often written Pallice, or rectly given in the Percy Memoir (1 and Pallis, and seems to have been so written 116), and in Mr. Shaw Mason's Statistical by Goldsmith's father. The rev. Mr. Account or Parochial Survey of Ireland, III. Mangin believed the latter to be the 357; but Mr. Prior settled the date of the proper name, having seen it in Charles month by reference to the fly-leaf of Goldsmith's handwriting. (Parlour Win-Charles Goldsmith's family Bible, still dow, 4.) So did the rev. Mr. Graham, preserved by one of his descendants in who supposed indeed that Dr. Johnson, Athlone (Life, I. 14). The exact year does in writing it Pallas, had simply laid a not now appear upon the leaf, but Mr. trap for the too classical biographer who | Mason has stated it correctly. * Æt. 2. His father, the reverend Charles kenny-west improved his forGoldsmith, descended from a tunes. He succeeded in 1730 to family which had long been this living of his wife's uncle;* his 1728. settled in Ireland, and held income of forty pounds was 1730. various offices or dignities in raised to nearly two hunconnection with the established dred; and Oliver had not church, was a protestant clergy-completed his second year when man with an uncertain stipend, the family moved from Pallaswhich, with the help of some more to a respectable house and fields he farmed, and occasional farm on the verge of the pretty duties performed for the rector little village of Lissoy, "in the of the adjoining parish of Kil-"county of Westmeath, barony kenny-west (the reverend Mr. "of Kilkenny-west," some six Green) who was uncle to his miles from Pallasmore, and about wife, averaged forty pounds a midway between the towns of year. In May 1718 he had mar-Ballymahon and Athlone. ** The ried Anne, the daughter of the first-born, Margaret (22nd Aureverend Oliver Jones, who was gust, 1719), appears to have died master of the school at Elphin to in childhood; and the family, at which he had gone in boyhood; this time consisting of Catherine and before 1728 four children had (13th January, 1721), Henry (9th been the issue of the marriage. February, 17-***), Jane (9th A new birth was but a new February, 17-), and Oliver, born burthen; and little dreamt the at Pallasmore, was in the next humble village preacher, then or ten years increased by Maurice ever, that from the date of that tenth of November on which his Oliver was born his own virtues and very foibles were to be a at an eight shillings rent, renewable for legacy of pleasure to many genera-ever on the payment of half a year's rent tions of men. For they who have for every new life, the first lives being loved, laughed, or wept with the father of the man in black in the Citizen of the World, the preacher of the Deserted Village, or the hero *** The leaf of the family Bible recordof the Vicar of Wakefield, have ing these dates is unfortunately so torn given laughter, love, and tears, that, as in the case of Oliver's birth, the precise year of the births of Henry and to the reverend Charles Gold-Jane is not discernible from it; but it smith. *Percy Memoir, 2. **Here Charles Goldsmith seems to have procured a lease of about 70 acres those of himself, his eldest son Henry, and his daughter Catherine; a property which remained in the family till sold in 1802 by Henry Goldsmith's son, then a settler in America. Prior, I. 16, 17. seems to me quite decisive, from the fact The death of the rector of Kil- of the same day specified in both cases, *Many particulars of them will be found in Mr. Shaw Mason's volume quoted above, "drawn up from the communica"tions of the clergy." coupled with the distinct assurance of Mrs. Hodson that there was a childless interval of seven years before the birth of Oliver, that Henry and Jane were twins, and both born in 1722. The month of John's birth is also erased, |