10. CATHERINE, DAUGHTER OF THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.
(Oliver’s Niece.)
The facts as to the daughter of Henry Goldsmith are easier to piece together, as Bishop Percy drew up when in London in July, 1800, a memorandum as to her case which has fortunately been preserved in manuscript, and gives incidentally some particulars as to other members of the Goldsmith family.
There are a number of pitiful letters from this poor little lonely and suffering soul addressed to the Bishop at dates ranging from 1794 to March, 1803, with drafts of two of the Bishop’s replies, mercifully modified before despatch, referring to his monetary advances already made to her, and speaking of the “constant source of plague and vexation” which the question of the publication of the Memoir had been to him. The end came in July, 1803, when one McDonnell wrote to the Bishop’s secretary that Catherine had died “after a painful illness to which her dependant and helpless situation must have greatly contributed.” McDonnell had seen to her being decently buried, and thought 8 or 9 guineas would reimburse the total cost. No doubt the Bishop sent him this.