(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).