OLIVER GOLDSMITH. From Joseph Marchi’s mezzotint of 1770 after the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. PANE OF GLASS with Goldsmith’s autograph signature, dated March, 1746, now at Trinity College, Dublin. VIGNETTE TO THE TRAVELLER. Drawn by Samuel Wale, and engraved by Charles Grignion. HEADPIECE TO THE TRAVELLER. Engraved on wood by Charlton Nesbit for Bulmer’s _Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell_, 1795. THE TRAVELLER. From a design by Richard Westall, R. A., engraved on wood by Thomas Bewick for Bulmer’s _Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell_, 1795. VIGNETTE TO THE DESERTED VILLAGE, 1770. Drawn and engraved by Isaac Taylor. HEADPIECE TO THE DESERTED VILLAGE. Engraved on wood by Charlton Nesbit for Bulmer’s _Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell_, 1795. THE WATER-CRESS GATHERER. Drawn and engraved on wood by John Bewick for Bulmer’s _Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell_, 1795. THE DEPARTURE. Drawn by Robert Johnson, and engraved on wood by Thomas Bewick for Bulmer’s _ Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell_, 1795. EDWIN AND ANGELINA. From an original washed drawing made by Thomas Stothard, R.A., for Aikin’s _Goldsmith’s Poetical Works_, 1805. PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH, after Sir Joshua Reynolds. From an etching by James Basire on the title-page of _Retaliation_, 1774. SONG FROM THE CAPTIVITY. Facsimile of Goldsmith’s writing and signature, from Prior’s _ Life of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B._, 1837, ii, frontispiece. GREEN ARBOUR COURT, OLD BAILEY. From an engraving in the _European Magazine_ for January, 1803. KILKENNY WEST CHURCH. From an aquatint by S. Alken of a sketch by R. H. Newell (_Goldsmith’s Poetical Works_, 1811). HAWTHORN TREE. From the same. SOUTH VIEW FROM GOLDSMITH’S MOUNT. From the same . . . To face p. 183. [This picture is unavailable.] THE SCHOOL HOUSE. From the same. PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH. Drawn by Henry William Bunbury and etched by James Bretherton. From the _Haunch of Venison_, 1776. PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH. From a silhouette by Ozias Humphry, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery. LISSOY (OR LISHOY) MILL. From an aquatint by S. Alken of a sketch by R. H. Newell (_Goldsmith’s Poetical Works_, 1811). THE PARSONAGE. From the same. INTRODUCTION Two of the earlier, and, in some respects, more important _Memoirs_ of Oliver Goldsmith open with a quotation from one of his minor works, in which he refers to the generally uneventful life of the scholar. His own chequered career was a notable exception to this rule. He was born on the 10th of November, 1728, at Pallas, a village in the county of Longford in Ireland, his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, being a clergyman of the Established Church. Oliver was the fifth of a family of five sons and three daughters. In 1730, his father, who had been assisting the rector of the neighbouring parish of Kilkenny West, succeeded to that living, and moved to Lissoy, a hamlet in Westmeath, lying a little to the right of the road from Ballymahon to Athlone. Educated first by a humble relative named Elizabeth Delap, the boy passed subsequently to the care of Thomas Byrne, the village schoolmaster, an old soldier who had fought Queen Anne’s battles in Spain, and had retained from those experiences a wandering and unsettled spirit, which he is thought to have communicated to one at least of his pupils. After an attack of confluent small-pox, which scarred him for life, Oliver was transferred from the care of this not-uncongenial preceptor to a school at Elphin. From Elphin he passed to Athlone; from Athlone to Edgeworthstown, where he remained until he was thirteen or fourteen years of age. The accounts of these early days are contradictory. By his schoolfellows he seems to have been regarded...