The next letter, that dated 14 August, 1758, addressed to Robert Bryanton is only known to us through its appearance for the first time in Prior’s Life (I, 263). It complains of not having heard from Bryanton or of his doings, gives an amusing prophecy of his own future fame 200 years onwards as the author of the Essay on Polite Learning “a work well worth its weight in diamonds,” and then descends suddenly to earth with “Oh! Gods! Gods! here in a garret writing for bread and expecting to be dunned for a milk-score! However, dear Bob, whether in penury or affluence, serious or gay, I am ever thine. Give the most warm and sincere wish you can conceive to your mother, Mrs. Bryanton, to Miss Bryanton, to yourself: and if there be a favourite dog in the family, let me be remembered to it.”
The letter to Mrs. Lawder of 15 August, 1758, is a good deal more guarded, as his relations with his cousin and her husband appear not to have been at that time of a very cordial nature. The original has passed through several hands, and has been reproduced more than once in facsimile. I believe it is now the property of Mr. Sabin of Bond Street. Oliver says he had written to Kilmore (Mrs. Lawder’s address) from Leyden, from Louvain and from Rouen, but had received no answer. “To what could I attribute this, please, but displeasure or forgetfulness?”... “I heartily wish to be rich, if it were only for this reason to say without a blush how much I esteem you, but alas I have many a fatigue to encounter, before that happy time comes: when your poor old simple friend may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his nature, sitting by Kilmore fireside, recount the various adventures of an hard-fought life, laugh over the follies of the day, join his flute to your harpsicord and forget that he ever starv’d in those streets where Butler and Otway starv’d before him.” After a pathetic allusion to the decaying mental powers of his uncle Contarine, Oliver then makes his appeal as to the “Polite Learning,” but “whether this request is complied with or not, I shall not be uneasy.”
The second letter to Daniel Hodson, which I exhibit, is provisionally dated by the modern authorities about November, 1758. It was published by Percy in the edition of 1801, with the family matters omitted, and some few alterations and excisions. The letter really begins “You can’t expect regularity in a correspondence with one who is regular in nothing.” Later, Goldsmith says: “You imagine, I suppose, that every author by profession lives in a garret, wears shabby cloaths and converses with the meanest company; but I assure you such a character is entirely chimerical.” The family matters omitted by Percy may as well be restored:
“I am very much pleasd with the accounts you send me of your little son; if I do not mistake that was his hand which subscrib’d itself Gilbeen Hardly. There is nothing could please me more than a letter filld with all the news of the country, but I fear you will think that too troublesome, you see I never cease writing till a whole sheet of paper is wrote out. I beg you will immitate me in this particular and give your letters good measure. You can tell me, what visits you receive or pay, who has been married or debauch’d, since my absence, what fine girls you have starting up and beating of the veterans of my acquaintance from future conquest. I suppose before I return I shall find all the blooming virgins I once left in Westmeath shrivelled into a parcel of hags with seven children apiece tearing down their petticoats. Most of the Bucks and Bloods whom I left hunting and drinking and swearing and getting bastards I find are dead. Poor devils they kick’d the world before them. I wonder what the devil they kick now.” [End of first sheet of letter.]
On a fresh sheet:
“Dear Sister I wrote to Kilmore [where the Lawders lived]. I wish you would let me know how that family stands affected with regard to me. My Brother Charles promised to tell me all about it but his letter gave me no satisfaction in those particulars. I beg you and Dan would put your hands to the oar and fill me a sheet with somewhat or other, if you can’t get quite thro your selves lend Billy or Nancy the pen and let the dear little things give me their nonsense. Talk all about your selves and nothing about me. You see I do so. I do not know how my desire of seeing Ireland which had so long slept, has again revived with so much ardour....” “I ... brother Charles is settled to business. I see no probability of ... any other proceeding.” [Here follow sixteen lines of writing, which have been very effectually blotted out with ink of another tint, probably by the recipient, who sent the letter to be read by a neighbour.]
The letter ends thus (it is not signed):
“Pray let me hear from my Mother since she will not gratify me herself and tell me if in any thing I can be immediately serviceable to her. Tell me how my Brother Goldsmith and his Bishop agree. Pray do this for me for heaven knows I would do anything to serve you.” [ends.]
The back page is blank, except the address in Goldsmith’s writing: “Daniel Hodson Esqr. at Lishoy near | Ballymahon | Ireland.”
We come now to the one letter to his brother the Revd. Henry Goldsmith which has been preserved. It bears no date, and was doubtless written about February, 1759. After speaking about the “Polite Learning” book, Oliver goes on to describe his own difficulties: