INTRODUCTION LIFE OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH 1728-1774 Birth November 10, 1728, at the parsonage at Pallas, County of Longford, Ireland. ... "Pallas is a mere cluster of two or three cottages, called in Ireland farmhouses, but which, to an English eye, would present only the appearance of huts. . . . There is nothing remarkable in the aspect of the country. It is rather flat, naked of trees, and cultivated by small tenants.". - HOWITT, in Homes and Haunts of the British Poets. Parents Mother: Ann Jones, daughter of the Rev. Oliver Jones, master of the Diocesan school at Elphin. Father: The Rev. Charles Goldsmith, portrayed in the village preacher of The Deserted Village, and in Dr. Primrose of The Vicar of Wakefield. The Goldsmiths were of English origin. The Irish branch emigrated to Ireland about the sixteenth century. "Goldsmith sprang from a respectable, but by no means thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit kindliness and incompetency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from generation to generation. Such was the case with the Goldsmiths. They were always,' according to their own accounts, a strange family; they rarely acted like other people; their hearts were in the right place, but their heads seemed to be doing anything but what they ought.' 'They were remarkable,' says another statement, 'for their worth, but of no cleverness in the ways of the world.' Oliver Goldsmith will be found faithfully to inherit the virtues and weaknesses of his race."- WASHINGTON IRVING, in Life of Oliver Goldsmith. The Goldsmith Family Eight children, five boys and three girls. Oliver was the second son. The first son, Henry, a pensioner at Trinity College, Dublin, distinguished himself, and obtained a scholarship in 1743. Preferred a simple, quiet life, and settled down as curate of Kilkenny West. Beloved by Oliver, who dedicated The Traveller to him. Removal to Lissoy The Rev. Charles Goldsmith succeeded to the parish of Kilkenny West in 1830, on the death of his wife's uncle. The family moved to Lissoy and settled on a farm of seventy acres. "This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world whence he drew many of those pictures, rural and domestic, whimsical and touching, which abound throughout his works, and which appeal so eloquently to both the fancy and the heart."— WASHINGTON IRVING, in Life of Oliver Goldsmith. "Lissoy consists now of a few common cottages by the roadside, on a flat and by no means particularly interesting scene." — HOWITT, in Homes and Haunts of the British Poets. Early Education 1. "A dame's school," at the age of three. She considered Oliver one of the dullest boys she had ever attempted to instruct. |