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OLIVER GOLDSMITH
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
(From the painting by Reynolds.)]
Bell's Miniature Series of Great Writers
Oliver Goldsmith
BY
E. S. LANG BUCKLAND
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE BELL & SONS
1909
PREFACE
It is only right to acknowledge my indebtedness in the compilation of
this volume to John Forster, to whom as one of the most courageous,
industrious, and sympathetic of the writers of biography, all students
of Goldsmith must be profoundly grateful. To several other writers I
must also express my thanks, and to save the time of my kind readers
and to preserve a proper sense of obligation, it would perhaps be best
to admit at once that if this little book has any merits, they are due
to others, while its errors are all my own.
E. S. L. B.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "THE BEST BELOVED OF ENGLISH WRITERS" 1
II. "THE DESERTED VILLAGE" 13
III. "THE TRAVELLER" 27
IV. LONDON 36
V. "THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD" 45
VI. THE LITERARY CLUB 50
VII. DEBTS AND DIGNITIES 59
VIII. CONSUMMATE COMEDY 66
IX. THE POET AND THE ESSAYIST 75
X. THE LIGHT OF LOVE 84
LIST OF THE WORKS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH 88
SOME WORKS OF REFERENCE 89
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, FROM A PAINTING BY REYNOLDS _Frontispiece_
GOLDSMITH AS A YOUNG MAN 28
DR. JOHNSON, BOSWELL, AND GOLDSMITH AT THE MITRE TAVERN 46
THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN GOLDSMITH AND DODSLEY, 1763 52
GOLDSMITH IN MIDDLE AGE 56
NO. 2, BRICK COURT, TEMPLE (WHERE GOLDSMITH DIED) 63
STATUE OF GOLDSMITH 80
CHAPTER I
"THE BEST BELOVED OF ENGLISH WRITERS"
The Goldsmith family sprang originally from Crayford, a nestling
village in Kent. This southern county, in all its loveliness, can thus
add this high honour to its other though not greater glories. "To be
the best beloved of English writers," said Thackeray, "what a title
that is for a man!" This he gave to Goldsmith. It is a title that none
will dispute. Here is a love that will never pass away from our
hearts. Of Oliver Goldsmith, as poet and novelist, essay-writer, wit
and playwright, it may be said that his distinction and celebrity are
essentially English. Erin, sweet sister island, that land of loving
hearts, gave this child of sun and shade, his birthplace, his home and
many dear delightful days, never to be forgotten. Across the
separating years, to the very end and through all, the grateful heart
of the poet looked back very fondly upon the gentle and pathetic land
of his nativity. On November 10, 1728, Oliver Goldsmith first saw the
light of that world which, to the last, he loved, and greeted that
suffering heart and seeking aspiration of humanity, that above and
beyond almost all other men he could, and did, unfailingly
compassionate. It is needless to trace and recall, the ancestral
traditions of the Goldsmith family. Of its early history in England
and later settlement in Ireland, it will suffice that its annals are
as honourable as they are obscure. It had its men of light and
learning, but their power attained neither fame nor rank, and their
virtues were rather domestic than distinguished.
The family, which flowers in the delightful novelist and playwright,
was ever famed for goodness of heart and the possession of the very
smallest possible sum total of worldly prudence. Goldsmith was named
Oliver, after Oliver Jones, his grandfather. Noll held that Miss Ann
Jones, his mother, was descended from a Huntingdon stock, and that the
name Oliver came from no ancestor less celebrated than the Great
Protector. Whilst this may be felicitously fanciful, and quite in
character with dear Noll, who, doting upon every form of finery,
whether it came from illustrious ancestry or coloured clothes,
certainly had a face not unlike in contour and feature, the rugged
countenance of Cromwell.
Goldsmith was born in the remote village of Pallasmore, in the county
of Longford, Ireland. This district has been called the very midmost
solitude. Oliver's father was the Vicar of the parish. Three daughters
and one son preceded the appearance of little Noll in the parsonage
at Pallasmore. He was followed by three more brothers, making in all a
happy family of eight, of whom two died in childhood.
In 1730 the Rev. Charles Goldsmith was preferred from Pallas to the
living of Kilkenny West. The parsonage connected with this better
benefice was situated at Lissoy, the Immortal Village. Here Oliver's
childhood was passed. Unlike Pallasmore, this was a picturesque place
in the centre of a fair and goodly land. No poem opens more sweetly
than that which heralds its message:
"Sweet Auburn, loveliest village."
The Vicar's meagre income as a country pastor was increased
by farming, and vastly diminished by his open-hearted, swift
responsiveness to every sudden or permanent appeal to his purse, the
family wardrobe, or the larder. In this excellent and honoured man,
whose very piety was as sublime as it was confused, rambling, and
paradoxical, we have the quaint original of Dr. Primrose, one of the
most lovable characters that has ever lived to charm the page of
lasting literature.
In the family life at Lissoy one little child strikes us all with
deepest interest and love, and yet he was an oddity to those who knew
him, not as we do now, but as he was--a dull boy, and quite a
"blockhead in book-learning."
The master at the village school had been a soldier under the Duke of
Marlborough ere he returned to what had been his earlier vocation,
that of a pedagogue. He was a rough diamond, yet most revered, with
great kindness in his heart. His love of poetry inspired his pupils as
much as his stories of campaigns. He had an excellent literary taste.
If Goldsmith even when a boy valued this old friend, Paddy Byrne not
less saw the goodness, the hidden power, and the brightness of the
child. Noll was soon taken away from the village school. Just at the
moment when the heart of the master had greeted the hope of his little
scholar, Oliver caught confluent smallpox, with the pathetic result
that a face plain to begin with, grew a whimsical and winsome ugliness
all its own. Goldsmith has given us more than one friend, and not the
least of these old Paddy Byrne:
"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew."
Then we are told:
"Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes--for many a joke had he--
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned."
As the piece proceeds, the delicately chiding satire is delightful,
ringing at last with the laughing lines:
"And still they gazed, and still their wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew."
Seven years had elapsed between the birth of Oliver and the child that
preceded him. His elder brother Henry had superior qualities which
were early marked. To these his father gave great attention, lavishing
his means upon this boy's education. Oliver was destined for
commercial life in the paternal projection of those affairs and
eventualities of which men imagine they are masters. The force of
impressions that fall upon the mind in childhood must be strongest in
those children whose imaginations are most vivid. Listening to Paddy
Byrne made Oliver in heart and mind a wayward rover all his life.
Something of the imprudence of the little man came, it might be said,
from this dash of the recklessness of the old soldier and adventurer
infused into imaginative infant hopefulness. From this same instructor
he also gathered his devotion to books and poetry, which proved a
revelation that changed his father's purpose of fitting him for a
commercial calling.
Henry Goldsmith is known and remembered now through the poetic
expressions of honour and affection bestowed upon him by his brother.
One cannot tell at this hour whether the deeper sense of reverence
should fall upon his character or upon that gratitude through which
alone it lives.
In the childhood of Oliver Goldsmith, his brightness and the
foreshadowings of future force were not alone among the elements
within the little heart which lay neglected by those he loved and
whose lives he lighted, though they knew it not. In due course he was
despatched to another school, thirty miles away. He lived with his
uncle, Mr. John Goldsmith, a landed gentleman, and attended the school
at Elphin; and at eleven years of age was sent to another and a more
reputed Academy nearer home, at Athlone. Two years here and four at
Edgeworthstown completed his schooling at the age of seventeen.
Of the Vicar of Wakefield, and thence of the father of little Oliver,
it was said that all his adventures were by his own fireside, and all
his travels from one room to another. He was in all likelihood a
delicate man, and certainly deeply religious, with a high sense of
honour and common moral obligation. The _Vicar of Wakefield_, his best
portrait, stands an honourable and an imperishable filial tribute, the
fairest ever paid by son to sire.
One day, when this young Master Goldsmith was in his teens, he left
home for Edgeworthstown, riding a good horse, borrowed from a friend,
and in high glee, if money braces the manly heart. With a golden
guinea in his purse, he was as proud as wealth untold can make a
buoyant spirit, in the days when life is very bright and happiness is
everywhere. He loitered on the journey. The horse nigh slept, whilst
the rider mooned on in meditative peace, and a lad's romantic building
up of airy castellations. Instead of achieving his actual destination
by nightfall, he was still miles away from the appointed place.
Nothing daunted, with a proud and mighty air, he paused in the streets
of Ardagh to ask a wayfarer where he could find the best house of
entertainment. This question, it happened, was addressed to the
greatest wag in the vicinity.
The wit, a jocose fencing-master, Mr. Cornelius Kelly, now fenced with
words, and in all his life never did defter work. He pointed to the
house of old Squire Featherston, rightly averring no better
entertainment or hospitality could be found anywhere in all the world
than in that generous and hearty home. Thus mistaking this private
house and family mansion for an inn, the youth approached the place,
and the wag went on his way. Oliver gave the bell a good ring, told
the man to take his horse, and sauntered into the commodious parlour
of the Squire as if it had been the public room in some well-supplied
hotel. The Squire soon detected the mistake that had been made, and
knowing the father of the boy, seized upon the diverting situation,
entering with all his heart into the possibilities the joke might
yield. He turned landlord for the nonce, brought in the supper piping
hot, and then was ordered to bring a bottle of good wine. This the lad
cordially, yet with some condescension, shared with the supposed
master of the hostelry. More than this, at last putting all pride of
place aside, he told the good man to bring his wife and daughter to
the table. Oliver gave minute and particular orders for a good
breakfast on the morrow, and then went to bed.
We can picture the sweetly smiling daughter of the Squire, rippling
with laughter and every moment more bewitching.
We wonder what this prototype of Miss Hardcastle was like to look
upon, and whether her heart was as tender, and her wit and grace as
charming, as that of the character she at least did something to
inspire.
In the morning when master Oliver expected to part for ever with that
guinea in his pocket, he learned the actual state of things and left
no poorer than he came, but all the richer for the laughter and the
merriment and the good wishes of the friends, who, to divert and amuse
both him and themselves, had treated their guest so well.
In Trinity College, at the time when Goldsmith studied there as a
sizar, menial offices were involved in this dubious position. Amongst
these were sweeping the courts in the morning, carrying up the dishes
from the kitchen to the Fellows' table, waiting for dinner until all
the rest had finished, and wearing a garb to signalise inferiority and
degradation. Common manliness cannot suffer indignities of this sort.
Johnson at Oxford and Goldsmith in Dublin rebelled. The agonised sense
of decent justice could not be stifled. In such contexts, only cowards
can wish dishonour borne and indignation unrevealed. Oliver himself
had none of those conventional prejudices that raise Universities to
fetishes. Like the man he was, he would have been content to enter
some true trade.
His relatives had other thoughts. That faithful clergyman, his uncle
Contarine, persuaded his nephew into those paths of decorous ignorance
in which the ranks of the respectable tread their gentle way, and are
not rude enough to question custom. He in his time had been a sizar,
and had not found the duties devolving lowering or an impediment, as
he said, to intimacy and association with the great and good. The
reason why Goldsmith's career at Dublin was not radiant was dogging
poverty. In the midst of penury no sooner was money in his pockets
than silver and copper sped in response to any petition made upon his
unfailing if not unerring charity.
The poor fellow gave the very clothing from his bed. In the anguish of
pity, giving blankets, and sleeping cold and being laughed at and
scorned, involved the warranty of self-suffering upon the eager deed.
The lad lived in utter misery through the brutal tyranny of his tutor,
Wilder, a dissolute drunkard, a disgrace to his own times and
incomprehensible to ours. Death overtook this man in a drunken brawl.
His crimes were not without attenuating circumstances. College tutors
have trials enough to crush their characters, when they have
characters to crush.
Living in actual need as far as money was concerned, and a destitution
of interest more to be pitied, Oliver passed in obscurity through the
University. The Rev. Charles Goldsmith, dying in 1747, made the
position of his son even more precarious and pathetic, and a career of
mishap and misunderstanding still harder to endure. We find dear Noll
failing in scholarships, or losing through mere negligence the prizes
he had gained, and, lastly, with a philosophic indifference to the
transitory nature of mortal learning, pawning the books he ought to
have studied. It was a doleful business. He had, as he said, "a knack
of hoping." It must have been a clever trick, for it never quite
failed. He wrote ballads that were bought up eagerly, and merrily
sung, cheering the poor in the common streets of Dublin. He made a
shilling or two now and then upon these transactions. These, we can
imagine, brought him more pride and pleasure than academic prowess
could have afforded. One night he gave a supper to his friends, who
were all of a lively and hilarious order, and was for this, before his
assembled guests, thrashed by his tutor for his breach of college
discipline. Selling his remaining books and his clothes, he fled from
this scene of many sorrows. At Dublin, Goldsmith's diligence, however
faulty, was enough to gain for him commendation from time to time, but
no distinction worth mentioning. His worst crime is seen in a riot in
which he was not a ringleader. He scraped into his scrapes as he
scraped through his examinations.
These days were most desolate. His flight was not final. Reconciled
to his condition, he graduated in 1749, his name as usual the last
upon the list. When, later in life, he penned his _Inquiry into the
State of Polite Learning_, he wrote from bitter experience. Allied
with Johnson in the feeling of humiliation at the position of a sizar
in a College, Goldsmith went further, and questioned the whole policy
of education at our schools and Universities. It is hardly too much to
hold him one of the pioneers of modern methods, and those new,
slowly-growing principles, which mark our present somewhat broader
enlightenment.
Leaving the University, and returning to his mother's house at
Ballymahon, Goldsmith loafed about lazily, good-humouredly, and
merrily, taking things just as they came. To bear with him in patience
was hard for the members of his family. Our young, dreaming, and
delightful poet may not have been a blessing at home. Another hearth
saw this minstrel in his happiest vein. Passing his evenings at an
inn, he gleaned there a knowledge of mankind of which in later years
he made capital use. In time a finer audience than that he cheered at
this village ale-house, greeted a fairer humour when this tavern,
immortalised in happy memory, was seen in _She Stoops to Conquer_. At
this village hostelry, merriment, and not indulgence, ruled delighted
hours. In this haven of hilarity Oliver sang ditties and told stories
that blessed his boon companions. One recalls Shenstone's words:
"Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn."
It may seem difficult to discover a hero rejoicing in comrades
discovered in a village ale-house. Still less should we expect to find
in a heart pleased so easily a man of refined and exquisite
sensibility. Oliver Goldsmith, revelling in friends coarse and crass
to superficial vision, must have found in them gleams of holiness that
lives less loving could not discern.