PR 
 
 3493 
 .J7 
 
 COL. 
 
 joiiii n. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Cliap Copyright No 
 
 SlielL_,_ir_7_ 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 
 
Ol,IA'i;ii (UjLDSMITH 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 BY 
 
 COL. JOHN A. JOYCE 
 
 Author of "Complete Poems," ** Checkered Life, 
 ** Peculiar Poems," '* Zig Zag," 
 "Jewels of Memory," 
 Songs, etc. 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 THE NEALE COMPANY 
 
 4JI Eleventh Street 
 
 1900 
 
 1 
 
234 
 
 Libj^py of Ck>ngr«ae 
 
 Tvr'o Copies Recejveo 
 JAN 2 1901 
 
 ^ Copyright entry 
 
 \.CLjfJ.. 
 
 SECOND COPY 
 
 daiivarsd to 
 
 0HD£8 DIVISION 
 
 JAN 21 1901 
 
 Copyright, 1900, by The Neale Company 
 
PREFACE 
 
 To know a Bohemian poet, you must join him 
 in soul, in midnight moments, when oscillating 
 between the blunders of Bacchus and vanity of 
 Venus. 
 
 I have knelt at the shrine of Goldsmith, the 
 good-natured man, for fifty years, and although a 
 hundred and twenty-six have passed since he 
 stepped "Across the Ranges" to eternity, his 
 "Vicar of Wakefield" and "Deserted Village" are 
 still cherished in the homes and hearts of mankind 
 with undimmed luster. 
 
 I lay this literary leaf among the wilderness of 
 flowers that decorate the memory of " Poor 
 Goldy," trusting that the reader may never cease 
 to love and laugh at the benevolent blunders of 
 the greatest Irish poet. 
 
 J. A. J. 
 
 IVashington 
 
 October I, igoo 
 
I DEDICATE 
 
 ALL THAT IS GENEROUS AND NOBLE IN THIS 
 
 VOLUME TO COLONEL WILLIAM B. ALLISON, 
 
 A MAN WHO NEVER VIOLATED A 
 
 PRIVATE OR POLITICAL 
 
 PROMISE. 
 
 J. A. J. 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 i4r\LivER Goldsmith was the greatest 
 poetic genius of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury ; and while Sam. Johnson is styled 
 the "Lion of English I^iterature," from 
 his ponderous tread and roar, Goldsmith 
 might well be compared to the mountain 
 eagle that soars over the world in sun- 
 shine and storm, dipping lightly into the 
 darkest valley of despair or rising 
 grandly over the highest peaks of poetic 
 magnificence. 
 
 Goldsmith was cradled in the gloom of 
 adversity amid the rural desolation of 
 Ireland, reared in the walks of humiliat- 
 ing poverty and thrown on the world like 
 
10 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 a rich wreck, broken to pieces by the 
 contending billows of fortune and mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 The wail of the Banshee and the laugh 
 of the fairies must have commingled at 
 his birth, for his whole life was a conten- 
 tion between poverty and pride, and often 
 when Dame Fortune placed within his 
 grasp some of the richest jewels in her 
 crown, he flung them away like a petulant 
 child and turned his back on the gilded 
 palaces of power to suffer and starve 
 around the rickety stairs of Green Arbor 
 Court or Grub Street. 
 
 His poverty and pride went hand in 
 hand, and while at times he seemed to 
 conquer the former, he never could subdue 
 the latter. But while pride was his be- 
 setting sin, it also was his constant solace 
 and kept him afloat amid the breakers 
 that overwhelmed many stronger men. 
 f The storm was never dark enough to 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 11 
 
 dim the lustre of his hope, and the night 
 was never so long but bright rays from 
 the dawning illuminated his squalid 
 quarters. When the fierce blasts of 
 winter howled like a wolf through his 
 broken window and down his cheerless 
 chimney, he had heart enough to lend 
 the poor beggar girl his last pot of coals 
 and crawl himself under a threadbare rug 
 to keep from freezing. 
 
 The starving and naked never appealed 
 to him in vain, and even when his last 
 shilling was gone he would send his only 
 good coat to the pawn-shop to relieve the 
 distress of some one more wretched than 
 himself. 
 
 The pathway of Goldsmith was tangled 
 with thorns, and even the few wild roses 
 that were plucked by the wayside he be- 
 stowed upon the first needy traveler he 
 met — parting with the perfume of pros- 
 perity while he continued to tread the 
 
 / 
 
12 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 bleeding highway of adversity. His 
 nature was as unselfish as the sun, light- 
 ing up the dark nooks of despair as well 
 as irradiating the pinnacles of pomp and 
 power. His poetic heart was as light as 
 a gazelle skimming over the plain or 
 meandering around mountain steeps. 
 
 His literary flight was like some long, 
 rolling river, beginning its course in up- 
 land springs and peaks, winding through 
 sunlight and shadow to the brawling 
 brook, murmuring with a gentle flow 
 through meadow lands and fallow fields, 
 then rushing through rocky rapids and 
 leaping over fearful falls to sink forever 
 in the dark waters of the limitless 
 ocean. 
 
 The sunny side of his character was a 
 background of sadness, and while his 
 blundering brogue enlivened his compan- 
 ions at the "Three Jolly Pigeons" or 
 *' Literary Club," his weary heart often 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 15 
 
 beat to the siren echoes of suicide in the 
 lonely hours of midnight when no sound 
 was heard but the chiming clock in the 
 church tower or the mournful howl of the 
 distant watchdog. 
 
 Mirth, humor and melancholy ran a 
 race for the mastery, and while the world 
 laughed at his innocent credulity, it was 
 compelled to worship at the classic shrine 
 of his poetry and at the Pantheon portals 
 of his philosophy. 
 
 From boyhood, Goldsmith was a con- 
 stant prey to a horde of parasites, and 
 whenever his financial feathers grew 
 strong and beautiful, these irnpecunious 
 wretches plucked the fat goose and left 
 him again naked and ungainly, to sweat 
 as a bookseller's hack or starve in the 
 gloom of a I^ondon garret. He came 
 upon the world like a comet in the sky 
 when shadows of evening hasten the foot- 
 steps of declining day. His radiant 
 
14 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 beams were slow in development, but 
 gradually the warm glow of his genius 
 spread over the world like a midnight 
 meteor, filling all space with the dazzling 
 light of his intellect and leaving behind 
 a beauty that will never fade and a 
 memory that shall never die. 
 As the Celtic Congreve says : 
 
 *' The bards may go down to the place of their 
 slumbers, 
 The lyre of the charmer be hushed in the 
 grave, 
 But far in the future the power of their 
 numbers 
 Shall kindle the hearts of the faithful and 
 brave. 
 
 *' It will waken an echo in souls deep and 
 lonely, 
 Like voices of reeds by the winter wind 
 fanned ; 
 It will call up a spirit of freedom when 
 only 
 Her breathings are heard in the songs of 
 our land ! " 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 15 
 
 BIRTH AND RURAL SCHOOL DAYS 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith was the fifth child of 
 Rev. Charles Goldsmith, a country parson 
 of the English Church, who held a poor 
 living at the obscure village of Pallasmore, 
 in the County of Longford, amid the rural 
 solitudes of Ireland. Oliver was born at 
 this place on the loth of November, 1728, 
 one hundred and seventy-two years ago. 
 He was very young and innocent when 
 he was born, and continued so for the re- 
 mainder of his life ! 
 
 Up to the age of seventeen the educa- 
 tion of little Oliver was secured around 
 the romantic scenery of Kilkinny, Lissoy, 
 Elphin, Athlone, and Ballymahon, places 
 that made a lasting impression on his 
 mystic mind and gave color, beauty and 
 force to the subsequent products of his 
 
16 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 prolific pen. From his first attendance 
 at school he was pronounced a blockhead ; 
 and his relative Elizabeth Delap, his first 
 teacher, said, " Never was so dull a 
 boy." 
 
 At the age of nine we find him attend- 
 ing the school of Paddy Byrne at Lissoy, 
 and little did the palavering pedagogue 
 know the wealth of poetic intellect that 
 lay slumbering in the heart and soul of 
 his shy and awkward pupil. Paddy 
 Byrne had served in the wars of Marl- 
 borough as quartermaster in Spain, and 
 had a large stock of tales, campaign stor- 
 ies, fairy lore and a knack at singing Irish 
 ballads and spouting verses of his own 
 composition. Between scholastic work 
 and recreation he was fond of amusing his 
 scholars with stories that thronged his 
 memory, and we may be sure that none 
 of them were lost on the fertile brain of 
 little Oliver. 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 17 
 
 Thirty years afterwards, amid the whirl 
 of London life and overburdened with 
 hack work for Shylock publishers, he 
 gave a graphic picture of "the village 
 school master" that has never been 
 equaled or surpassed. Here it is : 
 
 " Beside you straggling fence that skirts the 
 
 way, 
 With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, 
 There in his uoisy 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 ; 
 Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
 The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
 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. 
 Yet he was kind ; or if severe in aught, 
 The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
 The village all declared how much he knew— 
 'T was certain he could write and cipher too ; 
 
18 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 Lands he could measure, terms aud tides pre- 
 sage, 
 And even the story ran that he could gauge. 
 In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, 
 For even though vanquished, he could argue 
 
 still,— 
 While words of learned length and thundering 
 
 sound 
 Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around, — 
 And still they gazed and still the wonder grew, 
 That one small head could carry all he knew ! " 
 
 A violent attack of smallpox forced 
 Oliver to quit the school of Paddy Byrne, 
 and when he had recovered, his grotesque 
 form and pitted face produced in the be- 
 holder a feeling of laughter that no doubt 
 caused the little fellow many a heart pang. 
 From this time forward he seems to have 
 been the butt of his associates and the 
 sport of Dame Fortune in the distribution 
 of her fickle favors. He attended school 
 for a while at Elphin, and when he was 
 eleven years old was sent to a higher 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 19 
 
 school at Athlone, five miles from Lissoy, 
 taught by a minister named Campbell. 
 He remained here two years, and then 
 went for a period of four years to the 
 Latin school of Rev. Patrick Hughes at 
 Edges worth town in the County of Long- 
 ford, where he finished the ordinary 
 branches of a liberal education. 
 
 While Goldsmith was tossed about 
 from school to school in this rural region 
 we only hear of him during vacation at 
 Lissoy as a shy, awkward, comical boy, 
 and thought by his school-mates ''no 
 better than a fool." But his last teacher 
 gave him credit for classical knowledge. 
 He took great delight in the translations of 
 Ovid, Horace, and Tacitus, but cared little 
 for the orations of Cicero. Dr. Johnson 
 says that ' ' he was a plant that flowered 
 late and nothing remarkable about him 
 when young." Yet when he was only 
 eleven years of age in his uncle's house at 
 
20 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 Klphin he surprised the family, and the 
 fiddler Cummings, who called him ugly 
 ^sop, with this sharp reply : 
 
 " Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, 
 See ^sop dancing and his monkey playing." 
 
 At the age of seventeen it was a great 
 puzzle what to do with Goldsmith. His 
 father was perplexed for the future of his 
 wayward son. The family funds had 
 recently been brought to their lowest ebb 
 by the pride of the old minister in giving 
 a marriage portion to his eldest daughter 
 Catherine, who had imprudently and priv- 
 ately married a Mr. Daniel Hodson, the son 
 of a neighboring landed gentleman. 
 
 If Oliver was to attend the Univer- 
 sity it must be as a sizar, or poor scholar, 
 who receives food, tuition and lodging 
 for almost nothing ; who performs menial 
 work, wears a coarse gown, a red cap, and 
 is a kind of college football for tyrannical 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 21 
 
 teachers and scheming scholars. At this 
 proposition his sensitive nature recoiled, 
 and he expressed a preference to be bound 
 to some trade, where wealthy mediocrity 
 would not spurn indigent superiority. 
 
22 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE ESCAPADES 
 
 The advice of his good-natured uncle, 
 Rev. Thomas Contarine, finally prevailed, 
 and on the nth of June, 1745, Goldsmith 
 was admitted last of a list of eight sizars 
 at Trinity College, Dublin. For four 
 years this human sensitive plant must 
 have endured the agonies of the damned 
 as pictured in the scorching lines of the 
 immortal Dante, who suffered himself 
 many of the humiliating tortures that fell 
 to the lot of poor little Oliver. Flood and 
 Burke were his schoolmates, and many 
 others who afterwards became renowned 
 in church and state ; yet their lives were 
 not tormented by poverty nor blistered 
 by the contempt of taunting teachers. 
 
 Goldsmith soon fell under the tutorship 
 of a brute named Wilder, who took special 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 2} 
 
 delight in persecuting the young sizar 
 and humiliating him on every occasion. 
 In May, 1747, two months after the death 
 of his famished father, Oliver took part in 
 a college riot against the police of Dublin, 
 who had unjustly arrested one of his class. 
 Several persons were killed and wounded 
 in the attack on the prison. Four of the 
 ring-leaders were expelled from the col- 
 lege, and among four others publicly 
 reprimanded was Oliver Goldsmith. To 
 this day the Latin record of the University 
 shows that he "favored sedition and 
 riot " — a just course against tyranny. 
 
 The tyranny of Wilder now became 
 worse than ever. One evening, after 
 Goldsmith had received several shillings 
 for a lot of ballads furnished a Dublin 
 music dealer, he invited " a party of 
 young friends of both sexes from the 
 city ' ' to supper and a dance in his out- 
 side detached quarters. When the fun 
 
24 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 of the revelers was at its highest, the 
 wicked Wilder broke into the rooms, 
 abused Oliver before the whole company 
 and wound up his midnight raid by giv- 
 ing the poor fellow a thrashing. The 
 gay party dispersed in a hurry, and the 
 next morning Goldsmith left the college, 
 after selling his books, and started for 
 Cork and America with only a shilling in 
 his pocket ! He wandered around for a 
 week in a half-dazed and starving condi- 
 tion and finally went home to his brother 
 Henry, who prevailed on him to go back 
 to the college, where he secured re-admis- 
 sion. He continued to be "cautioned" 
 and ' ' fined ' ' in the ' ' buttery books ' ' to 
 the end of his University term, February, 
 1749, when he obtained the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts, graduating the lowest 
 in his class. 
 
 Thus at the age of twenty-one he 
 emerged from the classical halls of old 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 25 
 
 Trinity with the lowest honors ; yet never 
 in the history of that renowned University 
 has there been one of its scholars that has 
 conferred higher honors on his Alma 
 Mater or greater pleasure to the world, 
 than the sensitive, rollicking, impulsive, 
 unselfish Irish Goldsmith. 
 
 A score of anecdotes are told of his rare 
 eccentricities and rebounding nature. 
 Who has not heard of his waiting in mid- 
 night hours on the streets of Dublin, 
 leaning against a lamp-post or crouching 
 around a corner, to hear the vagrant bal- 
 lad singers reciting his pathetic or rollick- 
 ing songs and then retiring through the 
 back gate of the college, where he meets 
 a poor beggar woman and her shivering 
 children, for whose immediate relief he 
 gives up all his bed blankets, splits open 
 the ticking and crawls into the feathers 
 to keep himself from freezing that memor- 
 able winter night? 
 
26 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 What a glorious example of charity, 
 heart, and benevolent humanity ! The 
 records of the human race furnish no finer 
 or more sympathetic soul than was found 
 in the God-given genius of Goldsmith. 
 
 A quotation from his ' ' Bee ' ' papers 
 will illustrate the unselfishness of the man 
 and the great tenderness of his noble 
 nature : ' ' Why was this heart of mine 
 formed with so much sensibility, or why 
 was not my fortune adapted to its im- 
 pulse? Tenderness without a capacity 
 for relieving only makes the man who 
 feels it more wretched than the object 
 which sues for assistance." 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 27 
 
 I.AUNCHED ON THE OCEAN OF LIFE 
 
 This human craft was now launched on 
 the ocean of life, less prepared for its buf- 
 feting billows than any of his college 
 mates. With a poetic soul for a compass, 
 sentiments for sails and a tender heart for 
 a rudder, the great wonder is that he was 
 not engulfed by the first storm that struck 
 his lurching barque. For two years he 
 wandered around as a " Buckeen," or 
 genteel vagabond, among his relatives 
 and friends, living part of the time with 
 his mother at Ballymahon and rollicking 
 at wayside inns and ale houses with idle 
 and dissolute companions. We can see 
 the *'man in black," "Moses," and 
 " Marlow " singing with " Tony Lump- 
 kins ' ' the festive song of the ' ' Three 
 Jolly Pigeons ' ' : 
 
28 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 " Then come put the jorum about, 
 
 Aud let us be merry and clever ; 
 Our hearts and our liquors are stout — 
 
 Here's the 'Three Jolly Pigeons' forever. 
 Let some cry up woodcock or hare, 
 
 Your bustards, your ducks and your widgeons, 
 But of all the gay birds in the air. 
 
 Here ' s a health to the ' 'f h ree Jolly Pigeons. ' ' ' 
 
 What a wonderful analogy exists in the 
 festive Bacchanalian bouts of Burns and 
 the hilarity of Goldsmith. In the year 
 1 75 1, at the age of twenty- three, the Irish 
 bard made midnight musical with his 
 verses at Ballymahon, while the Scotch 
 bard, in 1791, at the age of thirty- three, 
 enlivened the ale houses and taverns of 
 Dumfries with his philosophic poetry and 
 comical songs. I can hear even now 
 himself and his rollicking chums deify 
 their mutual friend, John Barleycorn : 
 
 " Then let us toast John Barleycorn — 
 Each man a glass in hand ; 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 29 
 
 Aud may his great posterity- 
 Ne'er fail iu old Scotland ! " 
 
 Burns was fifteen years old, and had 
 begun writing poetry on his father's farm, 
 when the dazzling Goldsmith died ; and 
 it seems that the spirit of the ' ' Mountain 
 Dew ' ' of the Emerald Isle was transferred 
 in a double measure to the heart of Bobby 
 Burns, for the number of foaming ales and 
 ' ' hot scotches ' ' he drank on winter 
 nights might suffice to float a ship. If 
 there is a Scotchman iu the world who 
 has ever attended a Caledonian banquet 
 on St. Andrew's night, he can have an 
 idea of the brimming beakers that Burns 
 could empty in one of his tavern testi- 
 monials. 
 
 The storm without might roar aud rustle, 
 Tam did not mind the storm a whistle ; 
 Kings might be blessed, but Tam was glorious- 
 O'er all the ills of life victorious ! " 
 
30 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 Between hunting, fishing, spreeing and 
 teaching, Goldsmith spent another year 
 in a kind of aimless life ; but at last he 
 threw up his tutorship in the family of 
 Mr. Finn, of Roscommon, and with a fine 
 horse and thirty pounds in his pocket, he 
 started again for Cork and America. Bad 
 luck was his portion as usual. After 
 six weeks of strolling about Ireland, he 
 appeared at his mother's home in a for- 
 lorn condition, riding an old, broken- 
 down horse that he called " Fiddleback." 
 It seems that he had gone to Cork, se- 
 cured passage for America, put his kit 
 aboard the vessel, and while "larking" 
 about town a favorable breeze arose and 
 the ship suddenly sailed with his passage 
 money and luggage. He was compelled 
 to sell his good horse and work his way 
 back to relatives for another start. His 
 mother must have been as much mortified 
 as when he brought the gross of green 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 31 
 
 spectacles home from the fair in exchange 
 for the young colt bartered away for al- 
 most nothing. 
 
32 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 GOLDSMITH AS A HORSK TRADER 
 
 This scene iu the ' * Vicar of Wakefield ' ' 
 between the good " Deborah," presump- 
 tively Goldsmith's mother, and old "Dr. 
 Primrose," his father, will show some of 
 the eccentricities and mistakes of 
 "Moses" : — 
 
 ' * ' My dear wife, as we are now about 
 to hold up our heads, it would be proper 
 to sell the colt at a neighboring fair and 
 buy a horse that would carry single or 
 double and make a pretty appearance at 
 church or upon a visit.' " 
 
 Dr. Primrose intimates that he intends 
 to go to the fair himself and sell the colt, 
 but his good wife would not listen to such 
 a thing, as the parson had a bad cold, 
 and she remarked : 
 
 * ' ' No, my dear ; our son Moses is a 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 33 
 
 discreet boy and can buy and sell to a 
 very great advantage ; you know all our 
 great bargains are of his purchasing. He 
 always stands out and haggles and 
 actually tires them till he gets a 
 bargain.' " 
 
 Dr. Primrose continues and says : 
 " ' I was willing to entrust my son with 
 the sale of the colt, for I had a good opin- 
 ion of his prudence, and the next morning 
 I perceived his sisters mighty busy in 
 fixing out Moses for the fair, — trimming 
 his hair, brushing his buckles and cocking 
 his hat with pins. The business of the 
 toilet being over, we had at last the satis- 
 faction of seeing him mounted upon the 
 colt, with a deal-box before him for 
 grocery supplies. He wore a suit of that 
 cloth called "thunder and lightning," 
 which, though grown too short, was much 
 too good to be thrown away. His waist- 
 coat was of gosling green, and his sisters 
 
34 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 had tied his hair with a broad black rib- 
 bon. We all followed him several paces 
 from the door, bawling after him, " good 
 luck ! good luck ! ' ' till we could see him 
 no longer. >i< ^ ^ 
 
 " ' I wonder what keeps Moses so long 
 at the fair, as it is now almost night- 
 fall.' 
 
 " * Never mind our son,' cried my wife ; 
 * depend upon it, he knows what he is 
 about. I '11 warrant we '11 never see him 
 sell his hen of a rainy day. I have seen 
 him buy such bargains as would amaze 
 one. I '11 tell you a good story about that 
 that will make you split your sides with 
 laughing. But, as I live, yonder comes 
 Moses without a horse and the box on his 
 back.' 
 
 ' ' As she spoke, Moses came slowly on 
 foot and sweating under the deal-box, 
 which he had strapped around his 
 shoulders like a peddler. ' Welcome, 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 35 
 
 welcome Moses ! Well, my boy, what 
 have you brought us from the fair ? ' 'I 
 have brought you myself, ' cried Moses, 
 with a sly look, and resting the box on 
 the dresser. 'Ay, Moses,' cried my wife, 
 
 * that we know, but where is the horse ? ' 
 
 * I have sold him,' cried Moses, ' for three 
 pounds five shillings and twopence.' 
 
 * Well done, my good boy,' cried my wife ; 
 ' I knew you would touch them off in fine 
 style. Between ourselves, three pounds 
 five shillings and twopence is no bad 
 day's work. Come, let us have the 
 money ! ' 'I have brought back no 
 money,' cried Moses. ' I have laid it all 
 out in a great bargain, and here it is. 
 Here they are — a gross of green specta- 
 cles with silver rims and shagreen cases.' 
 
 * ''A gross of green spectacles," ' repeated 
 my wife in a faint voice. * And you have 
 parted with the pretty colt and brought 
 us back nothing but a gross of paltry 
 
36 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 green spectacles ! ' * Dear mother, ' cried 
 the boy, 'why don't you listen to reason? 
 I had the sharpers at a dead bargain or I 
 should not have bought them. The silver 
 rims alone will sell for double the money ! ' 
 * A fig for your silver rims ! ' cried my 
 wife in a passion. ' I dare say they 
 won't sell for half the money as broken 
 silver, five shillings an ounce.' 'You 
 need be under no uneasiness,' said I, 
 ' about selling the rims, for the whole lot 
 are not worth a sixpence, as they are only 
 varnished copper.' ' What, what ! ' cried 
 my wife. ' Not silver, the rims not silver ? ' 
 ' No,' cried I ; 'no more silver than your 
 sauce-pan ! ' ' And so we have parted 
 with our sweet little colt for a gross of 
 green spectacles. A murrain on such 
 trumpery ; throw them in the fire — hang 
 the blockhead. Oh you little idiot ! ' " 
 
 By this time the boy saw that he had 
 been swindled by a couple of confidence 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 37 
 
 sharpers at the fair. Yet this was only one 
 of the long train of misfortunes that fell 
 to the lot of our confiding " Moses" ! 
 Such guileless credulity has seldom been 
 found in man, and the foregoing escapade 
 of "poor Goldy," as told of himself in 
 the ' ' Vicar of Wakefield, ' ' well illustrates 
 the innocence and unsuspicious nature of 
 this great character — this benevolent 
 bunch of intellectuality. 
 
y8 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 ROLI.ICKING AROUND DUBLIN AND 
 EDINBURGH — PATRIOTISM 
 
 Goldsmith, soon after visiting his 
 mother, started again for London on his 
 horse " Fiddleback," with fifty pounds in 
 his pocket, to study law in the Temple. 
 He only got as far as Dublin, where he 
 met a number of boon companions, with 
 whom he spent the fifty pounds in drink- 
 ing and gambling, and was compelled to 
 fall back again upon his relatives. 
 
 He was forgiven once more, and for the 
 last time started from home to study 
 medicine in Edinburgh. Thus, at the 
 age of twenty-four he left the enchanting 
 scenes of Lissoy, and he says " the most 
 pleasing horizon in Nature," never again 
 to press the green sod of old Ireland, or 
 mingle his voice in the chorus of the 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 39 
 
 "Three Jolly Pigeons." However, he 
 never forgot the rural companions of his 
 youth, and always kept a warm spot in 
 his heart for his native land. He was a 
 true Irishman in the best sense of the 
 term, and while it has often been alleged 
 by surface readers of his character that 
 he was more English than Irish and 
 never wrote anything in praise of his 
 own countrj^, I saj^ emphatically, and 
 challenge successful contradiction, that 
 his pen and voice was never purchased 
 by British gold ; and this is more than 
 can be said of the Nugents, Kelleys, 
 Sheridans, Burkes, and Moores ! 
 
 No, when the Earl of Northumber- 
 land, Bishop Percy, Sam Johnson and 
 Lord North tried to purchase his pen to 
 assist tyranny during the American Rev- 
 olution, he spurned their brilliant offers 
 with contempt from the gloom of a L,on- 
 don garret, preferring to be even a book- 
 
40 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 seller's hack rather than a toadying pen- 
 sioner on the rolls of royalty ! His heart 
 always turned to old Ireland, and the 
 letter to his brother Maurice in January, 
 1770, shows abiding love for his Irish 
 friends, soliciting correspondence from 
 home to cheer his hours of carking care. 
 And again to his brother Henry, in his 
 poem of ' ' The Traveler, ' ' he breaks out 
 in a sigh of sorrow : 
 
 "Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
 My heart untravel'd fondly turns to thee ; 
 Still to my brother turns ,with ceaseless pain, 
 And drags at each remove a lengthening chain." 
 
 And to prove the climax of his Irish 
 patriotism, hear his classical indictment 
 in the "Deserted Village" against the 
 tyranny of landlords and princes, who 
 brought desolation and death to his own 
 ** Sweet Auburn" : 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 41 
 
 "Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, 
 Thy sports are fled and all thy charms with- 
 drawn ; 
 Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen. 
 And desolation saddens all thy green : 
 One only master grasps the whole domain, 
 And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. 
 No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 
 But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way ; 
 Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 
 The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest ; 
 Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies 
 And tires their echoes with unvaried cries ; 
 Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all, 
 And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall ; 
 And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's 
 
 hand, 
 Far, far away, thy children leave the land. 
 Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates and men decay : 
 Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, 
 A breath can make them, as a breath has made ; 
 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride. 
 When once destroyed can never be supplied." 
 
42 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 Goldsniitli remained around Edinburgh 
 for eighteen months, strolling among the 
 Highlands, feasting at banquet boards or 
 drinking and singing with wild students 
 at taverns and ale houses. We may be 
 sure that he paid more attention to amuse- 
 ment than to medicine, and the money 
 received from Irish friends found its way 
 into drinking tills of taverns. 
 
 Still restless, he took the sudden notion 
 to visit Holland and finish his medical 
 studies at I^eyden. But the vessel in 
 which he and half a dozen adventurers 
 embarked, after being out a few days, was 
 driven back to land. The medical students 
 now indulged in social cheer, and were 
 finally arrested for rioting and put in jail 
 for two weeks as French sympathizers. 
 The ship finally sailed without Gold- 
 smith, and all on board were lost, show- 
 ing that Providence kept watch over the 
 wandering minstrel. He finally reached 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 43 
 
 Leyden, where for ten months he hung 
 about the great Gaubius, storing his er- 
 ratic brain with chemical lore. 
 
44 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT 
 
 Medicine could not minister to a mind 
 like Goldsmith's. Baron Holberg, the 
 Danish humorist, had then but recently 
 made a tour of Europe on foot, without 
 friends or money, nothing but a fluent 
 tongue and sweet voice to pay the ex- 
 pense of his travel, after which he re- 
 turned to Copenhagen to live in opulence 
 and be honored by Kings and Queens. 
 With a flute and a clean shirt and a shil- 
 ling, Goldsmith thought he could do like- 
 wise, and at onee tossed aside his medical 
 books, departing from I^eyden on foot to 
 view strange lands and study continental 
 customs. He passed through Flanders, 
 France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, 
 visiting the principal cities or lingering 
 along rural roads and hamlets as a 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 45 
 
 philosophic vagabond, singing and play- 
 ing his familiar flute for bread and bed. 
 
 Although ' ' chill penury froze the genial 
 current of his soul, ' ' it could not fetter the 
 flight of his mystic muse, which sung to 
 the world the r3^thmic numbers of the lone 
 ' ' Traveler. ' ' How the heart of our poet 
 must have swelled with exultation and 
 pride as he viewed the architectural 
 grandeur of Paris, climbed the rugged 
 glaciers of the towering Alps, or wandered 
 through the artistic halls of Venice, 
 Verona, and Florence. I behold him now 
 in lonely contemplation, musing and com- 
 posing immortal verses on Alpine peaks ; 
 seated at the foot of some great master- 
 piece of art, shining from the sculptured 
 walls of Florentine palaces ; debating at 
 Universities for supper and shelter, or tun- 
 ing his magic flute in twilight hours for 
 the delight of dancing peasantry ! Glor- 
 ious, unconscious genius ! 
 
46 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 After a wild, lunatic ramble of more 
 than two years, we find this guileless 
 creature, in February, 1766, landing 
 under the chalk cliflfs at Dover without a 
 farthing or friend to cheer his heavy heart. 
 London was the goal of his ambition — 
 that seething, voracious gulf, where 
 Dryden, Butler, Otway, and Chatterton 
 had been swallowed up in the hungry 
 maw, and now Goldsmith was ' ' one the 
 more, to baffled millions which had gone 
 before. ' ' In working his way to the cap- 
 ital he was compelled to attach himself to 
 a strolling band of players, who performed 
 in taverns and barns for the few shillings 
 that rustic simplicity paid for mediocre 
 amusements. 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 47 
 
 LONDON WHIRLPOOL 
 
 He filially entered London, shambled 
 through its crooked lanes, wondered 
 at its stately streets and mitral monu- 
 ments, pondered over its temples and 
 towers and stood on the strand near the 
 crumbling arches of London Bridge — 
 where the dark waters of the Thames roll 
 its sluggish circles to the sea. 
 
 Here he is at last, at the age of twenty- 
 seven years and three months, leaning 
 against some ruined warehouse or broken 
 column, not knowing in that Leviathan 
 pool of human hopes where to turn for 
 work, bread or shelter. Alone in the 
 midst of millions — 
 
 " Lone as a solitary cloud, 
 Lone as a corpse within a shroud," 
 
48 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 He was not the first one who had come 
 up to London to set the Thames afire 
 with his intellectual torch. Men from 
 every land under the sun had sought to 
 inflame and burn up the dark waters, but 
 they roll on to-day as heedless of the 
 world as when ' ' Poor Goldy ' ' gazed into 
 the running mirror. Yet, after all the 
 failures of these ideal wanderers to reap 
 the rich grain of financial fortune, they 
 are the men that the world cares to honor 
 and remember, when myriads of their 
 sordid commercial contemporaries are lost 
 in the waters of oblivion. I The trials he 
 encountered in the cold winds and mists 
 of March to prevent absolute starvation, 
 and the shifts he must have made to keep 
 from freezing in midnight hours when he 
 " lived among the beggars of Axe-Lane," 
 will never be known. 
 
 An usher at a boarding-school seems to 
 have been his first employment, but after a 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 49 
 
 few months' trial he declares that he would 
 rather be an under turnkey in Newgate 
 prison than suffer the cruel humiliations of 
 his task. He here submits a list of civil 
 service questions and answers for primary 
 teachers who intend to become first-class 
 ushers. Hear him : 
 
 " Have you been bred apprentice to the 
 business?" ''No." "Then you will 
 never do for a school. ' ' 
 
 "Can you dress the boys' hair?" 
 "No." "Then you won't do for the 
 school. ' ' 
 
 " Have you had the small - pox ? " 
 "No." "Then you won't do for a 
 school." 
 
 ' ' Can you lie three in a bed ? " " No. ' ' 
 " Then you will never do for a school." 
 
 ' ' Have you a good stomach ? " " Yes. ' ' 
 "Then you will certainly not do for a 
 school." 
 
 "Well, sir, since you are not fitted for 
 
50 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 the peculiar position of usher, what do 
 you think of becoming an author? I '11 
 show you forty dull, jog-trot fellows 
 about town who live in opulence by writ- 
 ing rotten stuff, who if bred cobblers 
 would all their lives have only mended 
 shoes but never made them." 
 
 So the usher hailed with joy the position 
 of authorship and became a worshiper at 
 the shrine of his literary mother of Grub 
 Street. 
 
 But for awhile ' ' Poor Goldy ' ' was a 
 pounder of pills and a kind of peripatetic 
 doctor. Poverty pursued him with re- 
 lentless fury, and his natural improvi- 
 dence quickened her pace, yet necessity 
 compelled him to mould monuments of 
 thought that will endure and live when 
 temples in stone and columns in bronze 
 shall perish under the corroding touch of 
 Time. Competition in English literature 
 was at its height when Goldsmith took a 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 51 
 
 job of hack-work with Grifiiths, proprie- 
 tor of the Monthly Review. His idea of 
 hack-work is given in an epitaph to his 
 friend : 
 
 " Here lies poor Ned Purden, from misery free, 
 Who long was a bookseller's hack ; 
 He led such a damnable life in this world 
 That I don't think he'll wish to come back!" 
 
 A long list of Irish, Scotch and English 
 second-class writers were devouring each 
 other on the newspapers, reviews and 
 magazines of lyOndon, while first-class 
 stars like Johnson, Smollet, Fielding, 
 Collins, Gray, Chesterfield, Gibbon, 
 Burke, Ramsey, Cibber, Garrick, Ho- 
 garth, and Reynolds shone in the firma- 
 ment of British literature and art. 
 
 Yet into this list of intellectual gladia- 
 tors. Goldsmith, the youngest, threw his 
 shining lance and challenged them to 
 combat. His lodgings in Green Arbor 
 
52 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 Court, among tinkers, beggars and wash- 
 erwomen were not calculated to inspire 
 philosophic prose or patriotic poetry. Yet 
 his "Inquiry into Polite lyearning," ''The 
 Citizen of the World, ' ' Histories of Greece, 
 Rome, and England, "The Traveler," 
 "Vicar of Wakefield," "The Deserted 
 Village," and "Animated Nature" are 
 some of the rare flowers that sprung from 
 this hot-bed of wretchedness. 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 53 
 
 HAPPY DAYS 
 
 Smollet introduced Goldsmith to New- 
 bery, the publisher, who employed our 
 poet ou the British Magazine and Public 
 Ledger. About this time a ray of pros- 
 perity shone on * ' Poor Goldy, ' ' and we 
 find him in better quarters at Wine Office 
 Court and the Temple, giving literary 
 suppers to "Jupiter" Johnson and his 
 satellites. His appearance at the ban- 
 quet board toasting stag guests must 
 have been ludicrous in the extreme. Im- 
 agine a five foot five, blue-eyed man, 
 wearing a puffed, powdered wig, green 
 vest, ruffled shirt, plum-colored coat, 
 scarlet breeches, buckled pumps, and 
 shining sword dangling by his side, glass 
 in hand, singing Johnny Armstrong's 
 ' ' Last Good Night, " or the " Three Jolly 
 
54 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 Pigeons ' ' and you will have some idea of 
 this good-natured, blundering beau, who 
 sought to cover up the deformities of na- 
 ture with the artistic circus suits of his 
 trusting tailor Filby. Poor fellow, his 
 heart was so honest and his acts were so 
 innocent that he never, to his dying day, 
 appreciated his funny attitude nor the 
 laughter he provoked among his tavern 
 companions or the lords of the Literary 
 Club. He was, however, a welcome 
 guest at the coffee house of the neglected 
 and the mansion of the renowned, and his 
 ringing laughter and guileless wit infected 
 all who came under the spell of his genial 
 magnetism. 
 
 The mellifluous flow of his liquid 
 language could soften the dry est subject, 
 and even commonplace things were rele- 
 gated to the realms of romance. His 
 sententious sentences and delightful dic- 
 tion sends a thought through the heart, 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 55 
 
 swift as an arrow from the quiver of 
 Diana. Prosperity could not inflate his 
 pride nor adversity depress it. ; He walked 
 his wild, wandering way as God had 
 created him, and the petty rules and 
 regulations of mankind were ignored in 
 the calendar of his philosophy. If his 
 shrewdness had kept pace with his gener- 
 osity he might have left behind a million 
 pounds, but as it was he left not a penny, 
 but debts ; and was buried by the charity 
 of friends. It is an incontrovertible fact 
 that men of great genius have no apti- 
 tude for accumulating or retaining money, 
 while men of mediocrity and mathemati- 
 cal methods leave millions behind them, 
 to be separated and squandered by quar- 
 reling children and laughing lawyers. 
 
 " Poor Goldy " was vain, frivolous and 
 improvident, yet in spite of this he was 
 modest, faithful and philosophic. Such 
 a medlev of contradictions has seldom 
 
56 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 been seen in the same man, and we are 
 often at a loss to know whether to pro- 
 nounce him "an inspired idiot" or a sage 
 from the school of Socrates. 
 
 There is no Irishman so poor that does 
 not have others poorer than himself as de- 
 pendents. Goldsmith was cursed with a 
 crowd of perambulating parasites — liter- 
 arj' tramps — who took advantage of his 
 weakness and generosity. 
 
 The Kelleys, Purdens, and Pilkentons 
 leached upon his life. It is related that 
 Pilkenton rushed into the poet's room one 
 morning to borrow twenty guineas to 
 purchase a cage for some white mice he 
 intended to present a grand lady, whose 
 influence and wealth he wished to com- 
 mand. Goldsmith told his impecunious 
 chum that he had but a guinea, when 
 Pilkenton suggested that his gold watch 
 might be pawned to raise the desired 
 amount of money. "That's so," said 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 57 
 
 Goldsmith, "I never thought of that" ; 
 and suitmg the action to the words, 
 pulled out his fine watch, gave it to the 
 wretch, who quickl}^ placed it in pawn, 
 made away with the money, and did not 
 see his benefactor again until on his 
 deathbed, when " Goldy," hearing of his 
 condition, hastened to his relief, gave 
 more money to purchase medicine, and 
 forgave the fraud practiced on his unsus- 
 pecting heart. 
 
 Thackeray says that Goldsmith ' ' carried 
 no weapon save the harp on which he 
 played, and with which he delighted 
 great and humble, young and old, the 
 captains in the tents, the soldiers round 
 the camp fires — or the women and chil- 
 dren in the villages at whose porches he 
 stopped to play, and sing his simple 
 songs of love and beauty." 
 
 At the age of thirty-six Goldsmith 
 made his first great hit with the poem of 
 
58 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 the ''Traveler," which came from the 
 press of Newbery in December, 1764. It 
 immediately took rank with the best 
 poems in the English language, and from 
 the cot of the peasant to the palace of the 
 prince it became a welcome guest, and 
 crowned its author with a laurel wreath 
 of poetic victory. Envious authors and 
 domineering aristocrats who had insulted 
 him in his days of obscurity and poverty 
 now gave him universal praise. 
 
 How he pictures friendship in this 
 quotation : 
 
 " And what is friendship but a name, 
 A charm that lulls to sleep ; 
 A shade that follows wealth or fame, 
 And leaves the wretch to weep? " 
 
 Fifteen months after the issue of the 
 ''Traveler," the "Vicar of Wakefield " 
 was launched on the world, not however 
 until it had accumulated the dust of more 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 59 
 
 than two 3'ears in the desk of Newber}^ 
 If his poetry secured the author honest 
 praise, his effort in the field of historic 
 fancy made a lasting impression, and 
 surprised even the authors of his day. 
 The five greatest novels of the world are 
 * * Don Quixote, " " Pilgrim ' s Progress, ' ' 
 "Robinson Crusoe," the "Wandering 
 Jew," and "Vicar of Wakefield," and 
 strange to say the authors — Cervantes, 
 Bunyan, DeFoe, Sue, and Goldsmith — 
 were imprisoned or exiled for the audacity 
 of their genius by the ignorance and 
 tyranny of the age in which they lived. 
 But the millions of human hornets who 
 pursued them have long since gone to 
 forgotten graves, while these universal 
 characters still shine above the gloom of 
 bigotry and shall continue to irradiate 
 the midnight of coming ages. 
 
60 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 DRAMAS AND MISCELLANEOUS 
 LITERATURE 
 
 ^ Goldsmith professed no worldly creed. 
 /Nature was his Bible and right his religion. 
 The catholicity and benevolence of his 
 spirit soared over the earth with a halo 
 of celestial beauty and went out to all 
 mankind like warm rays of sunshine or 
 the refreshing dews of the dawn. His 
 flight of poetic fancy wings away from 
 the highest peaks of Parnassus, and in 
 his tribute to the Village Preacher, indi- 
 cates his belief in one eternal God. 
 
 " A man he was to all the country dear, 
 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 
 
 •X- * -x- * -K- " * 
 
 As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the 
 
 storm, 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are 
 
 spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 61 
 
 In January, 1768, his comedy of the 
 * ' Good Natured Man ' ' was produced at 
 Covent Garden, and in March, 1773, 
 * ' She Stoops to Conquer ' ' was rendered 
 at the same theatre under the manage- 
 ment of Coleman. The characters of 
 " Honey wood " and " Marlow " in these 
 plays are strict counterparts of the vacil- 
 lating, blundering, credulous conduct of 
 glorious Goldsmith. His novels, poems 
 and plays were simple autobiographies, 
 and the secret of his success and endur- 
 ance is the impossibility of separating the 
 author from the man, who honestly 
 acknowledges his failings and humanity, 
 securing at once our pity and sympathy 
 and commanding our admiration and 
 love. 
 
 In the interval of regular work he wrote 
 the lives of Beau Nash, Bolingbroke, 
 Parnell, Voltaire, the "Citizen of the 
 World," the "Bee Papers," and other 
 
62 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 fugitive works. Even many of the 
 ''Mother Goose" and "Goody Two 
 Shoes " are ascribed to his prolific pen. 
 The finest poetic production from his pen 
 was the ''Deserted Village," which ap- 
 peared in May, 1770, through Griffin, 
 ;/ who gave the poet one hundred guineas 
 
 I for the manuscript, or about five hundred 
 
 t dollars — no bad price in those days, but 
 
 worth ten times more. If there was any 
 doubt before as to the poetic excellence of 
 Goldsmith, it was now banished forever. 
 The polished lines, the mellifluous coup- 
 lets and the round, sonorous flow of the 
 perspicuous periods, joined with the 
 cauterizing rebuke given to luxury, arro- 
 gance, vice and tyranny — and the beau- 
 tiful description of village life and rural 
 innocence, has secured for the poem a 
 front place in the golden pages of British 
 classics. While the ' ' Traveler ' ' may 
 have more consistency in plan and phi- 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 63 
 
 losophy, it has not such perfect rythmic 
 measure, nor such a variety of home and 
 heart pictures. Its simplicity is its 
 crowning glory, and there are more mono- 
 syllable words in the poem than any other 
 of equal length in the language, not ex- 
 cepting the immortal lines of Homer and 
 divine sentences of Shakespeare. y 
 
 Could we to-day put a tongue in the 
 Mitre Tavern, the bountiful homes of 
 Reynolds, Davies and Johnson, what an 
 echo would arise out of Fleet Street, 
 Leicester Square, Russell Street, and the 
 Inner Temple — haunts made memorable 
 by the wit and genius of illustrious men. 
 
 That great personification of toadyism, 
 Boswell, has left us in his life of Johnson 
 many rare bits of wit emanating from the 
 writers and talkers of his day. He seems 
 to have been created as a tender to John- 
 son's engine, or a burr on the back of the 
 Grand Llama of literature. He had a 
 
64 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 peculiar aversion to Goldsmith, and 
 sought every opportunity to vent his 
 spleen on the poet. Some one in the 
 presence of Goldsmith said of " Bozzy " 
 that he was a Scotch cur. * * No, ' ' said 
 ''Goldy," "you are too severe. Tom 
 Davies threw him at Johnson in sport and 
 he has the facility of sticking." While 
 the poet could not shine in conversation 
 with Beauclerk, Johnson, Burke, or Gar- 
 rick, he often astonished them with his 
 sententious remarks. Johnson frequently 
 acted curt and brutal to " poor Goldy," 
 which led him to say that if the pistol of 
 Johnson missed fire he knocked you down 
 with the butt end of it. Yet while John- 
 son took unusual liberties with the poet, 
 he would not tolerate such conduct in 
 others. When Boswell spoke disparag- 
 ingly of Goldsmith, Johnson said : "You 
 are mistaken, sir; Dr. Goldsmith is a 
 great man and one of the first authors. ' ' 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 65 
 
 During the last years of the poet's life 
 he wandered around with Bohemian 
 chums through inland shires in search 
 of peace and health, visiting friends or 
 taking the waters of Bath, where Beau 
 Nash, the monarch of politeness and 
 fashion, reigned over society for more 
 than half a century. He went to Flor- 
 ence for a few weeks with the widow 
 Horneck and her two beautiful daugh- 
 ters, whose friendship he secured and 
 maintained to the end of his life. And 
 although his "Jessamy Bride" — Mary 
 Horneck — married some years after his 
 death and survived the poet sixty-six 
 years, she never forgot the funny little 
 man that jumped into the fountain at 
 Versailles in an effort to prove his dex- 
 terity for the admiring eyes of his sweet- 
 heart. 
 
66 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 EXIT 
 
 When he lay dead in his coffin in 
 his quarters at the Temple, on the 4th of 
 April, i774j a slender, sweet- faced woman, 
 dressed in mourning, was seen to pass 
 through the line of beggars, tinkers, and 
 Bohemians, and clip from his scanty locks 
 a few strands of hair, place them in her 
 bosom and disappear as silently as a nun 
 behind the flowing folds of a black veil. 
 This was Mary Horneck , his ' * Jessamy 
 Bride, ' ' who inspired the affections of the 
 poet, and, as Washington Irving says, 
 ' ' rendered her interesting throughout 
 life and hung a poetical wreath above her 
 grave." 
 
 The last literary gem that fell from the 
 jeweled fountain of his brain was the poem 
 "Retaliation," touching oflf the members 
 LofC. 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 67 
 
 of the Literary Club, who had made him 
 the butt of some Bacchanalian cheer. 
 Garrick satirized the poet with some wit 
 with his celebrated lines : 
 
 "Here lies Poet Goldsmith, for shortness called 
 Noll, 
 Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor 
 Poll." 
 
 Goldsmith made this reply to the jeal- 
 ous Garrick : 
 
 •* Here lies David Garrick, describe him who 
 
 can — 
 An abridgement of all that was pleasant in 
 
 man ; 
 As au actor confessed without rival to shine, 
 As a wit, if not first, in the very first line. 
 Yet with talents like these and an excellent 
 
 heart. 
 The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 
 Like an ill-judging beauty his colors he 
 
 spread. 
 And bespattered with rouge his own natural 
 
 red ; 
 
68 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 On the stage he was natural, simple, aflfecting — 
 
 *T was only that when he was off he was act- 
 ing. 
 
 With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 
 
 He turned and he varied full ten times a day; 
 
 He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack. 
 
 For he knew when he pleased he could whistle 
 them back. 
 
 Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what 
 came, 
 
 And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for 
 fame ; 
 
 'Till his relish grown callous, almost to dis- 
 ease, — 
 
 Who peppered the highest was surest to 
 please ! " 
 
 Garrick made a reply, containing mean, 
 personal allusions, which are only remem- 
 bered as a contrast to the keen and just 
 cuts conjured up by the magic wand of 
 our benevolent, good-natured poet. When 
 lie came to the last and best name belong- 
 ing to the Literary Club, Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds, the illustrious painter, he left the 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 69 
 
 lines unfinished, and from his nerveless 
 grasp dropped the potent pen that aston- 
 ished the age in which he lived and has 
 electrified the world down to the present 
 day — and shall continue to bless it with 
 his rare voluptuous periods when tomes 
 of pompous platitudes are mouldering in 
 forgotten archives ; and even when the 
 lone traveler of Macaulay, wandering 
 from the wilds of New Zealand, shall 
 stand upon the broken arches of I^ondon 
 Bridge amid desolation and solitude, sur- 
 rounded by crumbling palaces, temples 
 and towers, I imagine that he will hold 
 in his hand a volume of Goldsmith and 
 ponder upon the ruins of another Deserted 
 Village ! 
 
 Farewell, dear Goldsmith, thy majestic muse 
 Will sing forever, and shall never lose 
 The spirit of thy noble, gentle heart, 
 That can not from our daily lives depart ; 
 
70 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 But, from the deepest gloom of care and strife 
 Shall echo sweetly through the trials of life ; 
 Soothe in every grief, shine even o'er despair, 
 A golden treasure always sparkling there. 
 Above thy tomb, rare flowers of fadeless hue 
 -Shall bloom forever and thy fame renew, 
 And weary pilgrims shall their steps incline 
 To worship at the glory of thy shrine. 
 Pale poverty or wealth adown the years 
 May read " Sweet Auburn " through their smiles 
 
 or tears, 
 Sigh with the Parson, laugh with village boys, 
 Mix with all their woes, mingle in their joys ; 
 And with the Village Master and his jokes 
 May turn from town and dwell with country 
 
 folks ; 
 Drink at the ale house, dance upon the green. 
 And round the hawthorn bush renew each scene 
 That blessed the rustic swains of long ago — 
 Ere landed tyrants brought them ceaseless woe. 
 And when the village joy departs and fails, 
 We '11 turn to other climes and fresher gales, 
 Where Alpine mountains rear their giant form, 
 Lifting their icy shoulders to the storm ! 
 And frowning grandly o'er the vales below 
 Where grinding glaciers thunder in their flow, 
 
Oliver Goldsmith 71 
 
 Aud the wild avalanche with frightful sound 
 Leaps from its moorings, startles, tears the 
 
 ground ! 
 Or if to Italy we wish to turn, 
 Thy Muse, dear *' Goldy," will inspire each urn 
 With tongues that tell of poets, painters, sages, 
 Who left deep footprints in the rock of ages ; 
 While in the mirror of the mystic mind 
 You picture every thought that thrills mankind. 
 And when we tire of soft Italian skies 
 Your magic flute shall make our spirit rise. 
 Where the French grandsire, skilled in gestic 
 
 lore, 
 Dances beneath the burthen of three-score, 
 Or where the dykes of Holland boldly stand 
 To battle back the ocean from the land. 
 Thy lingering lyre still sounds a pensive lay 
 Where man aud morals melt into decay — 
 Where Albion lawns and London's gilt and glare 
 Your tireless muse still sings o'er cruel care ; 
 And though you sigh o'er England's wasted 
 
 charms, 
 " The land of scholars and the nurse of arms," 
 You yet can boast that freedom's highest reach 
 Is but to lay proportioned loads on each — 
 
72 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 Deploring penal laws that grind and kill, 
 
 The poor man's wreckage and the rich man's 
 
 will. 
 But in the club-room and the parlor scene 
 We catch your antics when in velvet green, 
 Your songs and dances with a romping glee ; 
 Your truthful heart is light, and pure, and free 
 As airs that wing o'er bright Arcadian bowers 
 To kiss bright dew drops from the fairest flowers, 
 And leave behind a glow of radiant dyes 
 To thrill our souls and fascinate our eyes. 
 Long shall your pleasing, honest, native art 
 Inspire the throbbing of each heavy heart ; 
 And though grand, pompous names attract our 
 
 view, 
 We '11 turn to truth and find eternal love in you ! 
 
 THE END 
 
Je 
 
 fi/t 
 
JAN 2 190! 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 151 674 7