ΤΟ CHARLES DICKENS. GENIUS AND ITS REWARDS ARE BRIEFLY TOLD: A LIBERAL NATURE AND A NIGGARD Doom, A DIFFICULT JOURNEY TO A SPLENDID TOMB. THRO' OTHER THAN LONE WILD OR DESERT-GLOOM, O FRIEND WITH HEART AS GENTLE FOR DISTRESS, THAT THERE IS FIERCER CROWDED MISERY IN GARRET-TOIL AND LONDON LONELINESS THAN IN CRUEL ISLANDS 'MID THE FAR-OFF SEA. JOHN FORSTER. March, 1848. * The original title of this Biography was the Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith. TO CHARLES DICKENS. GENIUS AND ITS REWARDS ARE BRIEFLY TOLD: A DIFFICULT JOURNEY TO A SPLENDID TOMB. THRO' OTHER THAN LONE WILD OR DESERT-GLOOM, O FRIEND WITH HEART AS GENTLE FOR DISTRESS, THAT THERE IS FIERCER CROWDED MISERY IN GARRET-TOIL AND LONDON LONELINESS THAN IN CRUEL ISLANDS 'MID THE FAR-OFF SEA. March, 1848. JOHN FORSTER. * The original title of this Biography was the Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION THIS Edition is not meant to displace its immediate predecessor, in two octavo volumes, of which it is an abridgment. But the favour extended to the book has suggested its publication in a form that may bring it within reach of a larger number of readers, and qualify it to accompany the many popular collections of those delightful writings to which its principal attraction is due. The chief omission in the present volume is of matter not immediately relating to Goldsmith himself, and of that large body of illustrative notes and authorities which may be referred to in the library edition. 58, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, October, 1855. J. F. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH BOOK THE FIRST Oliver as the Sizar, Student, Traveller, Apothecary's Journeyman, Usber, and poor physician 1728 TO 1757 CHAPTER I. SCHOOL DAYS AND HOLIDAYS. 1728-1745. THE marble in Westminster Abbey is correct in the place, but not in the time, of the birth of OLIVER GOLDSMITH. He was born at a small old parsonage house (supposed afterwards to be haunted by the fairies, or good people of the district, who could not however save it from being levelled to the ground) in a lonely, remote, and almost inaccessible Irish village on the southern banks of the river Inny, called Pallas, or Pallasmore, the property of the Edgeworths of Edgeworthstown, in the county of Longford, on the 10th of November, 1728: little more than three years earlier than the date upon his epitaph. His father, the reverend Charles Goldsmith, descended from a family which had long been settled in Ireland, and held various offices or dignities in connection with the established church, |