The house once occupied by the rector of Kilkenny West, pleasantly situated and of good dimensions, is now a ruin, verifying the truth of the pathetic lines of his son "Vain transitory splendours! Could not all Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall !" The front, including a wing, extends, as nearly as could be judged by pacing it, sixty-eight feet by a depth of twenty-four; it consisted of two stories, with five windows in each. The roof has been off for a period of twenty years; the gable ends remain, but the front and back walls of the upper story have crumbled away, and if the hand of the destroyer be not stayed, will soon wholly disappear. Two or three wretched cottages for labourers, surrounded by mud, adjoin it on the left. Behind the house is an orchard of some extent and the remains of a garden, both utterly neglected. In front, a pretty avenue of double rows of ash trees, which formed the approach from the high road, about sixty yards distant, and at one time presented an object of interest to travellers, has, like every other trace of care or superintendence, disappeared-cut down by the ruthless hand of some destroyer. No picture of desolation can be more complete. As if an image of the impending ruin had been present, the Poet has painted with fearful accuracy what his father's house was to be "Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And we contemplate the realization of the melancholy scene as we do the poem of the unfortunate Falconer, who, while singing the story of one shipwreck, scarcely conceived he was fated to perish by a second. A visiter to this spot will be tempted to believe, from the ignorance he finds among many of the neighbouring peasantry, that little enthusiasm exists regarding the name of him who nevertheless gives it all its importance. We found some unexpected instances of this. In Ireland the legend of a saint, or of a miracle, is universally familiar and never forgotten; but not so the memorials of her distinguished men. These have too often passed away with contemporary generations. Nor are the middling and upper classes exempt from the charge of neglecting what it should be their first ambition affectionately to cherish. It is not that they are indifferent to the fame of their celebrated countrymen, but we require more obvious proofs of the fact; it is in the public statue and the column, that their professions of admiration should be brought to the test of performance. In the homely village, standing a few hundred yards from the house, a spirit of veneration for the memory of Goldsmith has been that eight shillings an acre rent shall be paid during the war between Great Britain and Spain, and ten shillings during peace. fostered by a neighbouring gentleman, who has used all his influence to preserve from the ravages of time and passing depredators, such objects and localities as serve to mark allusions in the poem. Many of these are pointed out with sufficient resemblance to confirm an opinion, of which more extended notice will hereafter occur, of the Poet having this spot in view when engaged in its composition. Nothing could be more natural, in sketching rural character and scenery, than to look back on such as delighted his youth, and thence most forcibly impressed his memory. At Lissoy, Oliver, when about three years old, was given in charge of his first instructress: she was a relative, resident in the family, who by marriage with a neighbouring farmer became afterwards known as Elizabeth Delap, and died about 1787. In the decline of life she kept a small school in the village, and took pride in speaking to visiters of her former office. "I should have observed," writes Dr. Strean, now rector of Athlone, who was eighteen years curate of this parish, "that Elizabeth Delap, who was a parishioner of mine, and died at the age of about ninety, often told me she was the first who put a book into Goldsmith's hands; by which she meant, that she taught him his letters. She was allied to him, and kept a little school." "Within the last three years," says the Rev. Thomas Handcock, in a letter to Joseph Cooper Walker, Esq., of Dublin, for whom he was making inquiries on this subject in 1790, "I was called, in the absence of a neighbouring clergyman, to visit an old woman at Lissoy (the real name of the place, Auburn,) and, almost with her last breath, she boasted to me of being the first person who had put a book into Goldsmith's hands."t The characteristics of his mind in infancy, according to the account of Mrs. Delap, were not promising. She admitted he was one of the dullest boys ever placed under her charge, and doubted, for some time, whether any thing could be made of him; or, in the words used by Mr. Handcock, he seemed "impenetrably stupid." Dr. Strean gleaned some remembrances to the same effect. "He was considered," says that gentleman, "by his contemporaries and school-fellows, with whom I have often conversed on the subject, as a stupid, heavy blockhead, little better than a fool, whom every one made fun of."` To another inquirer, a Mr. Daly, who had collected some particulars of his early life, and who died in France early in the Revolution, her accounts were rather more favourable. She confessed he • John Hogan, Esq., who, succeeding to an estate in the neighbourhood, built a pretty house on the opposite side of the road, named after the scene of the poem, Auburn; not the poem, as some seem to imagine, called after the house. This gentleman's zeal deserves every praise; and the more, perhaps, because it has not been imitated in the neighbourhood. † MS. Correspondence, communicated by J. C. Walker, Esq., of Dublin, nephew to the author of "Memoirs of the Irish Bards." Known to the late Dr. M'Veagh M'Donnell, of Orchard Street, Portman Square, a protégé of Goldsmith, of whom some account will hereafter be given. Mr. Daly communicated to that gentleman several particulars of his former patron, was very young at the time; that he was docile, diffident, easily managed, and that his inaptitude for retaining his lessons might have arisen from the carelessness common to all children. Such circumstances are no otherwise worthy of notice, than merely for the gratification of curiosity; they indicate nothing. He is a bold speculator who draws decided inferences of what the man is to be, from the casual peculiarities of the mere child. At the age of about six years he was turned over to the care of the village schoolmaster, Thomas Byrne, a person characterized by many points of originality, had the Poet thought fit to sketch him at length. He had been educated for the profession he now followed; but, enlisting into the army, went with it to the Continent, and rose to be quartermaster of a regiment serving in Spain during the reign of Queen Anne. When reduced on the conclusion of peace, he returned to his original calling of an instructer of youth. His attainments were more than sufficient for all he professed to teach, which, in the want of more advanced scholars, were confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic; and the observations on manners and character furnished by the life of a soldier, set off to advantage such knowledge as he had gleaned from books. He is represented to have been eccentric in his habits, unsettled in disposition, of a romantic turn, wrote poetry, was well versed in the fairy superstitions of the country, and, what is not less common in Ireland, believed implicitly in their truth. He could likewise, according to the accounts of a few of his scholars who were living about 1790, given to the Rev. Mr. Handcock, "translate extemporaneously Virgil's Eclogues into Irish verse, of, at least, equal elegance." Not the least of his qualifications was the art of narrating his adventures in a manner to fix the attention and curiosity of his neighbours, and the scene of these narratives was commonly the alehouse. In the school, also, when indisposed to teach a lesson, he would often tell a story; and among the most eager listeners on such occasions was young Goldsmith, whose imagination appears to have been so much excited by what he heard, as to induce his friends to attribute to this cause, that wandering and unsettled turn which distinguished part of his future life. Under the tuition of Byrne he made no material progress; a dawning of natural powers, indeed, appeared, which relatives are happy to see and proud to record; he began to write puerile rhymes, and destroyed them as fast as they were written: but the usual school acquirements, either from defective memory or application, scarcely kept pace with those of other boys. The seeming activity of imagination exhibited by his verses made a strong impression upon his mother, who early began to believe that he was destined to make some figure in the world. His temper at this time, by the account of Mrs. Hodson, though peculiar, was kind and affectionate; his and believed he had discovered a few of his minor poetical pieces, of which notice will be taken in a future page. • MS. Letter to the late Joseph Cooper Walker, Esq. manner, for the most part, uncommonly serious and reserved, but, when in gay humour, none more cheerful and agreeable. In these words she has described her brother as he afterwards appeared to his acquaintance in London; solemn and yet gay, good-natured and yet irritable, petulant sometimes, and instantly appeased by the smallest concession; so that such as did not understand, or inquire into, the occasional peculiarities of genius, were puzzled by this contrariety of disposition; and the remark is even preserved, that he seemed to possess "two natures."* One of the causes alleged for his backwardness was devoted attachment to the fictions and marvellous stories which make so much of the amusement of children in all places, and of which Ireland has a more than ordinary store. He read with avidity; but the selection then and till a very recent period found in the village schools, cottages, and houses occupied by persons even above the class of peasantry in Ireland, was of the worst kind. His understanding or morals could derive no benefit from the perusal of such stories as the History of the Irish Rogues and Rapparees-Lives of celebrated Pirates-History of Moll Flanders-of Jack the Bachelor, (a notorious Smuggler,) of Fair Rosamond and Jane Shore-of Donna Rozena, the Spanish Courtesan—the Life and Adventures of James Freney, a famous Irish Robber, and others of a similar description, then the principal books of amusement for boys at school.t Whatever were their studies, a singular negligence existed as to their lighter stores of reading; no apprehension seems to have been entertained of the danger likely to arise from familiarizing the minds of youth with tales of robbery and impurity; and it is to the credit of the people, that morals have not been materially vitiated by the introduction of such improper publications into their hands. Another favourite occupation was in listening to the ballads of the peasantry, which, as may be conceived, made so strong an impression, that he could repeat and sing several to the latest period of life. Of these, and of fairy tales and superstitions, the stock in Ireland is so abundant, or the people possess so fertile an imagination for their invention, that in the rural districts few are at a loss to furnish their share for the amusement of a winter fireside. Telling tales is to others a profession; who travel the country in default of more steady modes of industry and find refreshment and a ready audience Sir John Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson; T. Davies's Life of Garrick. To this catalogue of what has been termed sarcastically the Cottage Classics of Ireland, and most of which the writer has seen in the hands of the peasantry, a friend who entered a cottage in the county of Clare a few years ago, and transcribed on the spot a list of their books, added the following: Ovid's Art of Love -The Devil and Dr. Faustus-Parismus and Parismenus-History of Witches and Ghosts-Montelea, Knight of the Oracle-Seven Champions of ChristendomMendoza's Art of Boxing; and, the only good volumes, several spelling books. My friend Mr. Crofton Croker's volumes form admirable specimens of the ingenuity and abundance of these fictions in the south of Ireland. In the north they are scarcely less numerous, and a harvest may probably be reaped there, by such as can devote time and diligence to the pursuit. in farm houses to hear such wonders as they have gleaned from memory, or by invention. To these legends Goldsmith is reported to have paid anxious attention; their effects were judged by his occasional reference in future life to fictions so wild and improbable. Such accidental circumstances are sometimes said to make poets; they may serve perhaps to strengthen an imagination already poetical, but could they create the race, Ireland and Scotland would boast a numerous offspring. An attack of confluent small-pox, which had nearly deprived him of life, and left traces of its ravages in his face ever after, first caused him to be taken from under the care of Byrne. And a superior master being now necessary, he was removed, on final recovery, to the same school of Elphin, in Roscommon, once superintended by his grandfather, but then under the management of the Rev. Mr. Griffin. Here he entered on a superior class of studies; he became, likewise, an inmate of his uncle, Mr. John Goldsmith of Ballyoughter in the vicinity, and soon exhibited such evidences of talent as to be considered by that gentleman and his family a boy of the most promising kind. This opinion became strengthened from a variety of trifling incidents; among others, by the following instances of prompt wit, which they took care should be known to his parents: Mrs. Hodson told the one, and Mrs. Johnston, another of his sisters, related the other. A company of young persons having assembled to dance in the house of Mr. Goldsmith, one of the party, a youth named Cumming, a proficient on the violin, was requested to play, while Oliver, who ever continued fond of the amusement of dancing, displayed his skill in a hornpipe. The effects of the late disease on his face, added to a short and thick figure, led the musician to hold him up to youthful ridicule as a personation of Æsop; and the jest proving a source of merriment, the object of it at length stopped short in the dance, and triumphantly turned the laugh against his persecutor, by pronouncing the following distich "Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, See Esop dancing and his monkey playing,” A retort so sharp and ready may seem above the usual capacity of a boy nine or ten years old. Something of our admiration, however, may abate, when we consider that Æsop probably formed one of his school books, and that some boyish verses, for they bear no proofs of a maturer age, lingering in his recollection, may have been altered to suit the purpose of the moment in gratifying juvenile re sentment. The other instance recorded of his quickness of repartee was connected with a male relative, whose imprudences had been the subject of conversation in the family. Calling at Mr. Goldsmith's, he found Oliver in the room, and desiring him to come forward, examined his face playfully, pronouncing in a strain of banter, "Why, Noll, you are become a fright; when do you mean to get handsome |