Very little is known about the eldest son of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith, Henry, who was born at Pallas on the 9 February, 1722 (Prior I, 14). He was educated at Dr. Neligan’s school at Elphin, afterwards matriculating at Trinity College, Dublin, on 4 May, 1741 (Prior I, 34, note). He was elected a scholar on Trinity Monday, 1743: “but returning home in the succeeding vacation, flushed probably with his recent triumph, he indulged a youthful passion and married” (Prior I, 35).
All that the Percy Memoir of 1801 (I, 3) says about Henry is: “Of his eldest son the Revd. Henry Goldsmith, to whom his brother dedicated The Traveller, their father had formed the most sanguine hopes, as he had distinguished himself both at school and at College, but he unfortunately married at the early age of nineteen: which confined him to a Curacy, and prevented him rising to preferment in the Church.” As he was born at Pallas in February, 1722, Henry must, if this statement be accurate, have become a married man in 1741, about the time he matriculated at Trinity College. There is evidently inaccuracy somewhere as to Henry’s age, and it may be doubted whether his marriage took place before or after his election as a scholar of his College on Trinity Monday, 1743. From some guarded words used by Prior (the most painstaking investigator into the family history) it is possible the marriage was a secret one, as Prior suggests that when it took place “he must have been three years older [than stated above], or have formed this connexion previous to entering the University. To some men this tie becomes a stimulus to exertion: to others it seems a clog upon every effort at rising in life” (I, 35). Prior seems to decide that in Henry’s case it was a clog. He speaks of Henry having “indulged a youthful passion and married,” and continues shortly afterwards: “Finding residence in College no longer eligible, the advantages of his scholarship were sacrificed: he retired, as appears from the college books, to the country: established a school in his father’s neighbourhood: and in this occupation added to that of curate at ‘forty pounds a year,’ though possessed of talents and character, he passed the remainder of life.” (Prior I, 35.)
It is nowhere very clearly stated, that it would seem that Henry acted as curate to his father at Kilkenny West, and perhaps after his father’s death in 1747 he continued in office under the new Rector, the Revd. Mr. Wynne (Prior I, 73). John Forster says (I, 427): “In his early life Dr. Strean succeeded Henry Goldsmith in the curacy of Kilkenny West, which the latter occupied at the period of his death (1768) and as he is careful to tell us, in its emoluments of £40 a year, which was not only his salary but continued to be the same when I [Strean] a successor, was appointed to that parish.”
The two brothers Henry and Oliver had a strong and abiding affection for one another. Oliver had corresponded with his brother whilst he was abroad, though none of his letters have been preserved. Part of The Traveller had been sent to Henry from Switzerland, and when it was completed and published at the end of 1764, the poem was dedicated to him. The opening paragraph contained this sentence: “It will throw a light upon many parts of it when the reader understands that it is addressed to a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year.” And the opening lines of the poem itself contain the familiar phrase:
“Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see,
“My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee:
“Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain
“And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.”
Later on there is the well-known description of the village preacher:
“A man he was to all the country dear,