The Family Letters of Oliver Goldsmith / A Paper Read Before the Bibliographical Society, October 15th, 1917

by Ernest Clarke

6. JANE GOLDSMITH, AFTERWARDS JOHNSON.

(Born 9 February, 1722. Sister of Oliver.)

As the family Bible entries from which were copied into Prior’s Life (I, 14) gave as the date of the births of Henry and Jane Goldsmith the same day 9 February, 17— (leaf torn), Forster surmised and with much plausibility that they were twins, born on the 9 February, 1722 (I, 9). Jane married one Johnson, a farmer at Athlone, and appears to have written to Oliver in 1769 about her impoverished condition, which Oliver in his letter to Maurice of January, 1770, regrets his inability to relieve.