_Read 15 October, 1917._
In a paper which I was privileged to read before this honourable
Society three years ago as to “New Lights on Chatterton,” I mentioned
incidentally that the researches of which that paper was the outcome
had arisen out of the examination by me of a large bundle of papers
that had been collected by Bishop Percy of Dromore, the editor of
the famous _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, and had apparently remained
unexplored since his death in 1811. The Chatterton documents were by no
means the most important and were certainly the least puzzling of the
array of miscellaneous papers included in this bundle, which contained
not only a variety of notes about Shakespeare and other subjects which
had engaged the Bishop’s attention, but chiefly and most interestingly
a large quantity of original letters written by and about Oliver
Goldsmith.
To discuss in detail the whole of the questions arising out of these
Goldsmith papers would really amount to writing a new life of that
poet, which I have no intention of doing. There exist already many
biographies of Oliver by writers of the first rank, and no fact of
salient importance concerning himself remains to be revealed, whatever
may be said as to his writings. There are, it is true, side-lights of
some literary interest and value afforded by the papers that have come
unexpectedly my way through the kindness and generosity of the great
grand-daughter of the Bishop by whose favour you have the advantage
of personally inspecting the original letters which I shall presently
describe: but this is not the occasion for minutiæ concerning them.
What therefore with your permission I propose now to do is to deal only
with the letters written by Oliver Goldsmith at various periods of
his life to members of his own family and old friends of his boyhood
resident in his native province, and to deduce from them some general
reflections as to the warmth of his affections and the simplicity of
his typically Irish character.
Thomas Percy, to whom we mainly owe the preservation of these letters,
was almost an exact contemporary of Oliver Goldsmith. The latter was
born on 10 November, 1728; Percy on 13 April, 1729. They first met
on Wednesday, 21 February, 1759, as fellow-guests of Dr. Grainger,
the author of the “Sugar Cane,” at the Temple Exchange Coffee House,
Temple Bar. Percy was then a bachelor clergyman with a college living
at Easton Maudit in Northamptonshire, but with literary associations
that kept him much in London; and Goldsmith was just emerging from
the chrysalis stage of hack-work for the reviews and was lodging in a
garret at Green Arbour Court near the Old Bailey. Percy met Goldsmith
again on 26 February, at Dodsley’s, for whom Oliver was preparing his
“Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe,” and on
Saturday, 3 March, before returning to Easton Maudit, he paid a visit
to Goldsmith at Green Arbour Court with the result expressed thus in
Percy’s own words:
“The Doctor was writing his Enquiry, etc., in a wretched dirty room in
which there was but one chair, and when he from civility offered it to
his visitant, himself was obliged to sit in the window. While they were
conversing, someone gently rapped at the door, and being desired to
come in, a poor ragged little girl of very decent behaviour, entered,
who dropping a curtsie, said ‘My mamma sends her compliments and begs
the favour of you to lend her a chamber-pot full of coal.’” (Percy
Memoir, p. 61.)
Percy was introduced by Goldsmith to Dr. Johnson on 31 May, 1761, and
the acquaintance with the great lexicographer and his literary friends
soon ripened and grew more intimate. “The Club” founded by Johnson
and Reynolds in 1764 included Goldsmith from the first: Percy and two
others were admitted to the charmed circle rather later (15 February,
1768). When Goldsmith died in April, 1774, the general impression seems
to have been that Johnson would write a biography of him for his “Lives
of the Poets”; but difficulties of one or another sort--chiefly perhaps
Johnson’s inertia, for he was then a man of 65--intervened to prevent
this: and eleven years afterwards, when Johnson himself was dead, Percy
was stimulated by Edmond Malone to undertake the task himself.
It is not improbable that he had in his own mind long before this
that something of the kind might have to be done by him, for there is
evidence in the papers confided to me for examination that Percy had
commissioned an inpecunious younger brother of the poet named Maurice
Goldsmith to collect for him all the procurable letters written by
Oliver to members of his family.
The biographers and commentators on Goldsmith have made much of an
extract from a letter from Percy to Malone which is printed on page 237
of Vol. VIII (1858) of Nichols’ _Literary Illustrations_; but they have
been unaware of the letter from Malone to which it is a reply. This
original letter of Malone is amongst those in the bundle which I have
been exploring. It is dated from London on 2 March, 1785, and gives
some interesting particulars as to Johnson’s affairs. The essential
parts as to Goldsmith are as follows:
“Soon after the death of poor Dr. Johnson, I mentioned to one of the
executors that I had formerly given him a letter from Dr. Wilson, a
fellow of the college of Dublin, relative to Dr. Goldsmith, who was
his classfellow. I did not then know Dr. Johnson as well as I did
afterwards, and improvidently gave him the original instead of a copy.
I therefore requested, if it should be found among his papers, it might
be sent to me. I suppose Dr. Scott, to whom I talked on the subject,
did not exactly recollect what I had mentioned, for about a fortnight
ago, a parcel of papers was sent to me marked at the outside ‘Dr.
Goldsmith,’ as I imagine from the Executors (for I received no note
with them), who conceived they belonged to me. On inspecting them, I
found they consisted of some very curious materials collected by your
Lordship for the life of Goldsmith, which I shall take great care of
till I hear from you on the subject. I often pressed Dr. Johnson to
write his life, and he would have done so, had not the booksellers from
some clashing of interests in the property of his works excluded them
from their great collection of English Poetry. It is a great pity that
these materials should be lost. Why will not your lordship, who knew
Goldsmith so well, undertake the arranging of them.... Dr. J. used to
say that he never could get an accurate account of Goldsmith’s history
while he was abroad.... Goldsmith’s letters are surely characteristick
and worth preserving.”
Percy no doubt asked for this bundle of papers to be sent to him in
Ireland; and when it was received, he wrote from Dublin on 16 June,
1785, the letter to Malone which, as stated above, is printed in Vol.
VIII of Nichols’ _Literary Illustrations_:
“I have long owed you my very grateful acknowledgments for a most
obliging letter, which contained much interesting information,
particularly with respect to Goldsmith’s memoirs. The paper which you
have recovered in my own handwriting, giving dates and many interesting
particulars relating to his life, was dictated to me by himself one
rainy day at Northumberland House, and sent by me to Dr. Johnson,
which I had concluded to be irrevocably lost. The other memoranda on
the subject were transmitted to me by his brother and others of his
family, to afford materials for a Life of Goldsmith, which Johnson was
to write and publish for their benefit. But he utterly forgot them and
the subject.... Goldsmith has an only brother living, a cabinet maker,
who has been a decent tradesman, a very honest worthy man, but he has
been very unfortunate, and is at this time in great indigence. It has
occurred to such of us here as were acquainted with the Doctor to print
an edition of his poems, chiefly under the direction of the Bishop of
Killaloe[1] and myself, and prefix a new correct life of the author,
for the poor man’s benefit; and to get you and Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr.
Steevens, etc., to recommend the same in England, especially among the
members of The Club. If we can but subsist this poor man at present,
and relieve him from immediate indigence, Mr. Orde, our Secretary of
State, has given us hope that he will procure him some little place
that will make him easy for life; and then we shall have shown 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.”
A scheme for publication of Goldsmith’s _Poetical Works_ was set on
foot in Dublin about this time, as appears from the following printed
document found amongst the Bishop’s papers:
“Dublin, June 1, 1785.
“PROPOSALS for Printing by Subscription, The Poetical Works of Dr.
Oliver Goldsmith; For the Benefit of his only surviving Brother, Mr.
Maurice Goldsmith, to which will be prefixed, A NEW LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
In this will be Corrected Innumerable Errors of Former Biographers,
From Original Letters of the Doctor and his Friends, but Chiefly from
An Account of Dr. Goldsmith’s Life, Dictated by Himself to A Gentleman,
who is in Possession of the Manuscript.”
The subscription price was to be a guinea, and subscriptions would be
received by the publisher, L. White, No. 86, Dame Street. What happened
to the money received for the subscriptions is not known; probably
Maurice Goldsmith drew cash “on account” for most of it. Anyhow the
book was never published.
If it had been set about at once, and been limited as proposed to
Goldsmith’s _Poetical Works_, and a Life of him compiled from the
original materials collected by Percy, it would doubtless have
been a success. As it was, the Bishop’s episcopal duties and other
preoccupations appear to have disinclined him to undertake the
work himself, and he therefore placed it in other hands, with very
unfortunate results to himself and to those members of the Goldsmith
family for whose benefit it was intended. Maurice Goldsmith no doubt
told his relatives of the pecuniary advantages that were in store for
him when the work came out, and appeals for help reached the Bishop
from the daughter of Henry Goldsmith, from the widow of Maurice, from
Charles Goldsmith, and from a son of Charles named John Goldsmith.
In the absence of the published work these appeals had to be met out
of the Bishop’s private purse, and involved him in much distressing
correspondence with the impoverished relatives of his dead friend.
At what period Percy formed the idea of expanding the publication so
as to include all Goldsmith’s known works--prose as well as poetry--is
not clear. Probably he was more concerned to see the Life written or
at least in preparation. It must be remembered that he was exceedingly
badly placed for now attempting work of this kind. He was in a remote
part of Ireland where the posts were irregular and the magazines did
not reach him till months after their issue. Writing to Malone on 16
June, 1785, he said: “I see publications about as soon as they would
reach the East Indies.” (_Lit. Ill._, VIII, 237.)
He seems to have attempted to shift the burden of compilation of the
biography on to a somewhat fulsome correspondent, Dr. Thomas Campbell,
Rector of Clones. When, after a long interval, Campbell’s efforts
proved unsatisfactory, the Bishop tried as collaborator the Rev. E.
H. Boyd, the translator of Dante, with equally disappointing results,
Boyd, like Campbell, having no personal knowledge of Goldsmith.
Eventually he had to set to work himself on a thorough revision; but
troubles arose after he had sent the manuscript to the publishers in
London (Cadell & Davies). Evidently that firm, to give local colour to
the narrative, got Samuel Rose to add some particulars about Goldsmith
(not always complimentary) from Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_. Percy,
who was not consulted, dissented from these “interpolations,”[2] and
eventually repudiated all responsibility for the work, which did not
actually see the light of day until it appeared in four volumes in
1801. Percy let his correspondents who wrote to him about Goldsmith
know how badly he was being treated, and they replied softly to him,
except George Steevens, who wrote on 9 September, 1797:
“Thus my Lord, you are left to make the best of your bargain; for if
you cannot intimidate you must submit. It is true that the works of
Goldsmith will always be sought after; but with equal truth it may be
observed that in this kingdom you will discover little zeal to promote
the welfare of his needy relatives, hundreds of objects here having a
superior claim to publick charity.” (_Litt. Ill._, VII, 1848, pp. 30-1.)
After Percy’s death in 1811 the major part of his voluminous
correspondence with literary and other friends appears to have
descended to his elder daughter Barbara, who had married in 1795 Mr.
Samuel Isted, of Ecton, Northamptonshire. It probably consisted not
so much of Percy’s own letters, which were doubtless retained in most
cases by their recipients, as of his correspondents’ letters to him,
with drafts of his replies to the more important of them. John Nichols,
the antiquarian printer who managed the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, was
a great friend and frequent correspondent of Percy, and the sixth
volume (1831) of the well-known _Literary Illustrations_ contained a
short memoir and portrait of Percy, with a selection of his letters
partly derived from William Upcott, Assistant Librarian of the London
Institution (p. viii of Introduction). The 856 pages of the next Volume
VII of the _Illustrations_, which was not published till seventeen
years later (1848), were practically entirely devoted to letters from
and to Percy--mostly the latter. This correspondence, according to the
“Advertisement” by J. B. Nichols, the editor, “was not in my possession
at the completion of the sixth volume, but has been acquired since by
public sale.”[3] Even this huge book did not contain all the Percy
letters, for the eighth and final volume of the _Illustrations_, not
published till 1858, was, so far as the letterpress (436 pages) is
concerned, wholly taken up with the rest of the “Percy correspondence.”
There are many references to Goldsmith and to the long-delayed “Memoir”
of 1801 in these letters, but nothing of great importance, and I
therefore have to fall back on the bundle of “Goldsmithiana” which has
happily been preserved in the other branch of the Percy family--the
Meades.
The story of the incubation, preparation and final publication of the
Edition of 1801 is long, complicated and tedious. It does not however
particularly concern us here, except in so far as we are indebted
to Bishop Percy for having collected practically all the original
letters written by Goldsmith to members of his family, and for having
in his disappointment after they were published, put them away with
the other documents concerning the publication, in a bundle which has
been practically unexplored ever since. Setting aside therefore any
questions as to the merits or demerits of what has been consistently
labelled by subsequent commentators as the “Percy Memoir,” we are
left with the consideration of the point to which I had intended to
address myself exclusively, the epistolary style of Oliver Goldsmith
himself. Percy could not resist the temptation of editing his friend’s
letters--not much, it is true, but still enough to induce us to turn
to the originals, as we are now enabled to do through the kindness of
their present possessor, Miss Constance Meade.
Now whilst Percy, as I have indicated, was an ardent and industrious
letter writer, Oliver Goldsmith emphatically was not.
One of Percy’s most frequent correspondents, James Grainger, M.D.
(1724-1766), who was, as already mentioned, the first to introduce
Percy and Goldsmith to each other, wrote to the former on 24 March,
1764: “When I taxed little Goldsmith for not writing as he promised me,
his answer was that he never wrote a letter in his life, and faith, I
believe him, except to a bookseller for money.” (Nichols’ _Literary
Illustrations_, Vol. VII, 286.) The letters written by Goldsmith
to members of his family and Irish friends of his youth which were
collected from various quarters at the instance of Percy after the
poet’s death show him to have had a great power of expressing his
feelings in simple and moving language, all the more interesting as the
writer could not possibly have imagined that they would ever be seen
in the cold light of print. Such letters divide themselves naturally
into three categories, viz.: those written (1) whilst he was a student
in Scotland and abroad; (2) after he had returned to England and was
a struggling hack-writer; (3) when he had achieved success in the
literary world. It will be convenient to consider these three series of
letters separately.