STERNE AND GOLDSMITH.
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Goldsmith's father was no doubt the good Doctor Primrose, whom we all of us know.[1] Swift was yet alive, when the little Oliver was born at Pallas, or Pallasmore, in the county of Longford, in Ireland. In 1730, two years after the child's birth, Charles Goldsmith removed his family to Lissoy, in the county Westmeath, that sweet "Auburn," which every person who hears me has seen in fancy. Here the kind parson[2]
- ↑ "The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or as it was occasionally written Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and seems always to have held a respectable station in society. Its origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which was long settled at Crayford in Kent."—Prior's Life of Goldsmith.
Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were clergymen; and two of them married clergymen's daughters. - ↑ "At church with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal each honest rustic ran;
Even children follow'd with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
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." —The Deserted Village.
a vulgar kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole store familiar features of life which form the staple of his most popular writings."— Washington Irving.
