GOLDSMITH. OLIVER, was b. in the village of Pallas, in the county of Longford, Ireland, Nov. 10, 1728. His father, the rev. Charles GoldsMith, a clergyman of the established church, held the living of Kilkenny west. At the age of six, Goldsmith was placed under the care of the village schoolmaster, when an attack of small-pox interrupted his studies. -On his recovery, he attended school at various plices. On June 11, 1745, he entered Trinity college, Dublin, as a slim.; the expense of his edu cation being defrayed by his uncle, the rev. Thomas Contarine. At the university— where Burke was his contempomry—Goldsinith gave no evidence of the possestion of. talent, and becoMing involved in some irregularity, quitted his Studies in disgust. He lingered in Dublin till his funds were 'exhausted, then wandered on to Cork, where, he being in great distress, a handful of peas was given him by a girl at a wake, the flavor of which remained forever sweet in his memory. By his brother Henry, he was brought back to college, where,. on Feb. 27, 1749, he received the degree of D.A. His uncle was now anxious that his .nephew should enter the church; but when he appeared before the bishop, he was rejected. Ills kind-hearted relative then gave him £50, and sent him to Dublin to sturdy law; but Goldsmith, being attracted to a gaming-table, risked his entire capital, and of course lost it. Another sum was then raised, and be proceeded to Edinburgh to study medicine, where he remained. 18 Months, but did not take a degree. He then proceeded to the continent, hovered about Leyden for some time, haunting the gaming-tables, but with indifferent success; and in Feb., 1755, he left that city to travel on foot through Europe, scantily provided as to purse and wardrobe, but rich in. his kindly nature and his wonder-working flute.
After taking his degree of B.M. at Padua or Louvain, Goldsmith returned to England in Feb., 1;56, when, by the assistance of Dr. Sleigh, a fellow-student,'he set up as a physician among the poor. He did not succeed in his profession, and he is represented as having become usher in the academy of Dr. Milner at Peckham. During this period he supported himself by contributions to the Monthly Review. He became candidate for a medical appointment at Coromandel, but was rejected by the college of surgeobs. The clothes in which he appeared for examination had been procured on the security of Mr. Griffiths, editor of the Monthly Review,. and as Goldsmith, urged by sharp distress, had pawned them, his publisher threatened. him with the terrors of a jail. He had now reached the lowest depths of Misery;. but the dawn was About to' treak1 His first publication of note was an Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe, and was published in April, 1759. In Jan., 1760, Mr. Newbery commenced the Public Ledger, to which Goldsmith contributed the celebrated Chinese Letters, after wards republished tinder the title bf The Citizen of the World. He also wrote a Life of Beau Nash, and a Thstory of England, in a series of letters. On May 31, 1761, he was introduced hy Dr. Percy to Dr. Johnson, who, in his turn, introduced his new
friend to the literary club. In Dec., 1764, The Traveller appeared, and at once placed him in the front rank of English authors. Two years after this he published the Vicar of Wakefield, which has now charmed four generations. In rapid succession he produced his other works. The comedy of the Good Natured Man, in 1767; the Roman History, in 1768; and The Deserted Village—the sweetest of all his poems—in 1770. In 1773, his comedy of She Stoops to Conquer was produced at Covent Garden with great applause. His other works are—Grecian History, 1774; Retaliation, a poem, 1777; and history of Animated Nature, which he did not live to complete. Although now in receipt of large sums for his works, Goldsmith had not escaped from pecuniary embarrassment. He was extravagant, loved fine living and rich clothes, his charities were only bounded by his purse, and he haunted the gaming-table quite as frequently, and with as constant ill success, as of old. In Mar., 1774, he came up to London, ill in body and harassed in mind, and took to bed on the 25th. With characteristic willfulness and imprudence, lie, contrary to the advice of his medical advisers, persisted in the use of James's pow der. He became rapidly worse, and Dr. Turton said: " Your pulse is in greater disorder than it should be from the degree of fever you have. Is your mind at ease?" " it is not," was the poet's reply, and the last words he uttered. He died on April 4, £2,000 in debt, and more sincerely lamented than any literary man of his time. Old and infirm people sobbed on the stairs of his apartments, Johnson and Burke grieved, and Reynolds, when he heard the news, laid down his pencil, and left his studio. He was buried in Temple church, and a monument was erected to him in 'Westminster abbey, bearing an epitaph by Dr. Johnson.
Goldsmith was the most natural genius of his time. He did not possess Johnson's mass of intellect, nor Burke's passion and general force, but he wrote the finest poem, the most exquisite novel, and—with the exception perhaps of the School for Scandal— the most delightful comedy of the period. Blundering, impulsive, vain, and extrava gant, clumsy in manner and undigsitied in presence, he was laughed at and ridiculed by his contemporaries; but with pen in hand, and in the solitude of his chamber, he was a match for any of them, and took the finest and kindliest revenges. Than his style—in which, after all, lay his strength—nothing could be more natural, simple, and graceful. It is full of the most exquisite expressions, and the most cunning turns. Whatever he said, he said in the most graceful way. When he wrote nonsense, he wrote it so exqui sitely that it is better often than other people's sense. Johnson. who, although he laughed at, yet loved and understood him, criticised him admirably in the remark: " He is now writing a natural history, and will make it as agreeable as a Persian tale." The standard life of Goldsmith is by Forster (1854); the excellent little work on Goldsmith by William Black appeared in 1879.