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The Citizen of the World
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by James Watt
- Coming soon
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- August 2024
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- 31 August 2024
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The Citizen of the World is a highly readable yet deceptively sophisticated text, using the popular eighteenth-century device of the imaginary observer. Its main narrator, the Chinese philosopher Lien Chi Altangi, draws on traditional ideas of Confucian wisdom as he tries (and sometimes fails) to come to terms with the commercial modernity and spectacle of imperial London. Goldsmith explores a moment of economic and social transformation in Britain and at the same time engages with the ramifications of a global conflict, the Seven Years' War (1756–63). He also uses his travelling Chinese narrator as a way of indirectly addressing his own predicament as an Irish exile in London. This edition provides a reliable, authoritative text, records the history of its production, and includes an introduction and explanatory notes which situate this enormously rich work within the political debates and cultural conflicts of its time, illuminating its allusiveness and intellectual ambition.
The Vicar of Wakefield
- A Tale, supposed to be Written by Himself
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Aileen Douglas, Ian Campbell Ross
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- June 2024
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- 30 June 2024
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This newly edited critical edition of an enduringly popular tale, one of the most widely reprinted and illustrated works of fiction in English, offers readers an authoritative text along with extensive and helpful annotation. Following the lives of the vicar and his family, and the various calamities which befall them, The Vicar of Wakefield was one of the most popular and beloved works of eighteenth-century fiction. A lively introduction details the reception of Goldsmith's tale, from comments by Frances Burney and Goethe, through Sir Walter Scott, Washington Irving and Henry James, to critics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The volume also includes appendices comprising a wealth of contextual information, enhancing the work for contemporary readers. For scholars of Goldsmith and new readers alike, this edition will prove the authoritative version of a tale that moved generations of readers to laughter and to tears.
57 - To John Nourse, [London, 26 April 1773]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 128-129
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John Nourse (bap. 1705, d. 1780), bookseller, specialized in language books, contemporary foreign literature, and scientific books. Based at the Lamb without Temple Bar, near the Strand, he would become bookseller to the Society for the Encouragement of Learning and then bookseller to the king, 1762–80. Not only was Nourse's shop an important venue for scientific discussion in London, it was an important node in the Enlightenment republic of letters; he had trade connections in Paris, The Hague and Leiden. Nourse disseminated key English texts abroad and published translations of significant European authors for British audiences – notably Voltaire. William Griffin had been forced to sell his interest in Goldsmith's History of Earth, and Animated Nature (for which he had already given £500 to Goldsmith by way of advance) to Nourse, who eventually published the eight-volume work on 1 July 1774.
Here Goldsmith is providing an aspiring author with a letter of introduction, an indication of Goldsmith's status – or, at the very least, his perceived status – among London booksellers. John Andrews (1736–1809), historian, would become best known for his History of the War with America, France, Spain, and Holland, 4 vols. (London: Printed for John Fielding and John Jarvis, 1785–6). The History of the Revolutions of Denmark, the text referred to here by Goldsmith and which Nourse published in April 1774, was his first publication. The introductory note ‘To the Reader’ observes: ‘Denmark having by the remarkable Events which happened in that Kingdom, during the Course of the last Year, attracted the Attention of all Europe, and particularly of the British Nation, from the Family Connexion subsisting between the two Crowns’ (1) makes clear that Andrews was exploiting interest in the shocking events surrounding the divorce and expulsion from Denmark of Queen Caroline Matilda – sister to George III – in 1772, events which captivated the British public. Goldsmith's interest in Andrews's book may also have been piqued by his personal recollection of King Christian VII's visit in 1768 and the masquerade for which he sought tickets for the Hornecks (see Letter 26).
23 - To George Colman, London, 19 July [1767]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 69-71
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George Colman the Elder (bap. 1732, d. 1794), playwright and theatre manager, had his greatest success with The Clandestine Marriage (Drury Lane, 1766), which he co-wrote with David Garrick. Colman then became part of Covent Garden’s management team, along with Thomas Harris, John Rutherford and William Powell, in 1767. He committed £15,000 for his share of the royal patent and seems to have taken primary responsibility for managing the theatre's day-to-day affairs. Goldsmith had initially courted David Garrick of Drury Lane to represent his first play The Good Natur’d Man which he completed in spring 1767. Garrick's reluctance and objections had inflamed Goldsmith and so he sent the manuscript to Colman: his acceptance of the piece without his partners’ acquiescence may have been a cause of dispute between them, settled in a lawsuit in Colman's favour in 1769. The letter's expression of appreciation to Colman is heartfelt, as are the bitter references to Garrick's previous equivocation. Balderston notes that Goldsmith’s finances were in a parlous state as is evidenced by the fact that he had borrowed £10 from Newbery on a promissory note on 7 July, even though he still had a note of £48, dating from 11 October 1763, still unpaid. Goldsmith had refused to subjugate himself to Garrick's wish for flattery in order to get his play accepted and he also rejected the Drury Lane manager's suggestions for improvements to the manuscript. His willingness in this letter to accede to any amendments that Colman might request betrays his eagerness to have the play performed, or might indicate a desire to spite Garrick, whatever the cost.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It was first published by Forster in 1848. It is addressed ‘To | George Colman Esqr. | Richmond.’ It is possibly postmarked 20 July although the ‘2’ is not clearly visible. The folio is also marked, in a different hand, ‘Dr Goldsmith to Colman’. Balderston notes that it was found among the papers of David Morris (1770?–1842) who gradually took over the management of the Haymarket from his brother-inlaw George Colman the Younger (1762–1836) during the 1810s.
46 - To Thomas Percy, [London, 1772‒1773]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 110-111
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Goldsmith was preparing an edition of the Spectator for an Irish publisher, William Wilson (c. 1745–1801), who was once described by Charlemont, the first president of the Royal Irish Academy, as ‘the most spirited printer in this spiritless City’. Wilson published Dublin editions of popular novels such as The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) and Robinson Crusoe (1781) and supplied books in bulk to Marsh's Library in Dublin, Ireland's first public library. He edited the Dublin Directory 1772–1801, an important overview of Dublin's commercial activity initiated by his father, Peter, in 1751. A letter from Wilson to Goldsmith sounded him out on the idea of an Irish edition of the Spectator and asked him for his terms. Wilson did eventually publish an eight-volume edition in 1778. Prior’s list of Goldsmith's books (II: 583) also includes an eight-volume edition of the Spectator (1729).
The copy-text is the manuscript in the British Library. It was first published by Balderston in 1928. It is addressed, ‘To | The Revd Doctor Percy.’ ‘Sent’ is inserted with a caret, in a different hand and in pencil after ‘I have’ in the final sentence.
[London, 1772 or 1773]
Dear Sir
I wish you would write for me the names of such persons as have written papers in the Spectator, at the end of every paper belonging to Addison and Steel &c there are letters. There are some however which are without marks. Those names I wish to have. I have you a little book where the numbers are mark’d, to which I beg you’l add the names.
Yours ever.
Oliver Goldsmith.Ill call or send on Sunday morning, being constrain’d for time.
32 - To Sir Joshua Reynolds, [Lille, 27 July 1770]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 87-88
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Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) was an artist and art theorist who was the founding president of the Royal Academy. He also established the Club and this is where his intimacy with Goldsmith developed, the pair having first met in 1761 through their mutual friend Johnson. Reynolds, also a bachelor, was a great champion of Goldsmith throughout his career, encouraging him to practise medicine again in 1765, advocating on behalf of The Good Natur’d Man, and even making Goldsmith Professor of Ancient History at the Royal Academy, much to his friend's delight, as we can see in Letter 29 above. This faith in Goldsmith's abilities was warmly acknowledged in The Deserted Village's dedication to Reynolds, which imagined him as a surrogate brother. Reynolds also featured in Retaliation, one of Goldsmith's final poems.
This letter and the one following describe a trip to Paris taken by Goldsmith and the Horneck sisters and their mother, probably at the behest of Reynolds. They travelled to the French capital via Lille before returning to England. The trip, according to Prior, lasted six weeks in total and, despite the reasonably energetic tone of the first letter, appears to have been a failure. Money, as often, seems to have been at the heart of the difficulty. At a dinner with John Ridge, an Irish lawyer (the ‘anchovy’ of Retaliation), Goldsmith was asked for his views on such trips. He replied, more than a little bitterly, ‘I recommend it by all means to the rich if they are without the sense of smelling, and to the poor if they are without the sense of feeling’ (P, II: 297). As the following letter reveals, this letter was never sent.
The copy-text is Balderston’s; her transcription was taken from the original in the possession of Constance Meade (Percy's great-granddaughter) which was inserted in her album and not deposited at the British Library with the rest of her Goldsmith letters. Its current location is unknown. It was first published by Percy in 1801. It has no address. The letter was given by Reynolds to Boswell and then on to Thomas Percy, confirmed by a marginal note ‘Original letter of Dr. Goldsmith to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who gave it to me. James Boswell’.
66 - To Isaac Jackman, [London, c. March 1774]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 142-143
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Isaac Jackman (1752?–1831), Irish journalist and playwright, moved from Dublin to London for a financially advantageous marriage. After his wife died – and her annuity stopped – Jackman began to write for the stage. He had a poorly received comic opera The Milesian staged at Drury Lane in 1777 before going on to moderate success with All the World's a Stage (1777), The Divorce (1781) and a two-act burletta Hero and Leander (1787). He edited the Morning Post for a period between 1791 and 1795. Jackman may have had radical tendencies: John Thelwall sent him ‘some Songs and other writings, calculated to rouse the Nation to a sense of its rights’ in the early 1790s, presumably in his capacity as newspaper editor.
This final poignant letter speaks to an important facet of Goldsmith's life in London as a point of contact and introduction to London for many Irish migrants. William Hodson might be the most obvious example but Goldsmith's sense of responsibility to the newly arrived stretched well beyond his familial duties, as Robert Day reported to Prior. Goldsmith was an important figure of inspiration for a new generation of Irish playwrights working in London, such as John O’Keeffe (1747–1833), Leonard MacNally (1752–1820), Dennis O’Bryen (1755–1832), and indeed Jackman, whose play The Milesian featured ‘Charles Marlove’ in homage to the character in She Stoops to Conquer.
The copy-text is a photocopy of the manuscript in the British Library and has never been published. The location of the original is unknown. Our dating of the letter in March is speculative, though the year 1774 appears to have been marked on the original in another hand. It was likely written as Goldsmith was in his final illness, and as Jackman was attempting to establish himself in the theatre scene at the time by contacting the Irish author of She Stoops to Conquer.
Mr. Goldsmith presents his Compliments to Mr. Jackman, and begs his pardon for not being able to attend him this day, as he finds himself too ill to Stir abroad.
25 - To the St. James's Chronicle, London, 25 July 1767
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 73-76
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Goldsmith's letter to the St. James's Chronicle; Or, the British Evening-Post was prompted by two separate letters the newspaper had recently printed. The first was an almost apologetic correction from ‘D. H.’ in a letter printed in the issue for 12–14 May. Goldsmith had endorsed the recent publication of Blainville's Travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, 3 vols. (London: J. Johnson, B. Davenport and T. Cadell, 1767). The various advertisements for this work claimed that it had never been published, a claim that was exposed as spurious by the letter-writer. ‘D. H.’ had ‘too much Respect for Dr. Goldsmith to suffer him to authorise so pitiful an Artifice’. The various advertisements for Blainville's Travels in the St. James's Chronicle and other newspapers do not, however, contain any reference to Goldsmith so it is not clear how his endorsement was publicized. In any event, Goldsmith owns up to his error in his letter and is happy to concede his mistake.
The second, more serious accusation, was an anonymous letter, often attributed to William Kenrick, in its issue for 18–21 July 1767. Kenrick had replaced Goldsmith as chief reviewer for the Monthly Review and had written a caustic review of Goldsmith's An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning (1759), probably at the instigation of Ralph Griffiths, the proprietor. ‘DETECTOR’ accuses Goldsmith of plagiarism: the substance of his claim is that Goldsmith’s poem ‘Edwin and Angelina’ was inappropriately derived from a ballad in Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The letter is reproduced here:
To the Printer of the ST. J. CHRONICLE.
SIR,
IN the Reliques of antient Poetry published about two Years ago, is a very beautiful little Ballad called “A Frier of Orders Grey.” The ingenious Editor Mr. Piercy supposes that the Stanzas sung by Ophelia in the Play of Hamlet, were Parts of some Ballad well known in Shakespeare's Time, and from these Stanzas, with the Addition of one or two of his own to connect them, he has formed the above-mentioned Ballad; the Subject of which is, a Lady comes to a Convent to enquire for her Love–, who had been driven there by her Disdain. She is answered by a Frier that he is dead.
37 - To Bennet Langton, London, 4 September 1771
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 97-100
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Bennet Langton (bap. 1736–1801) became friendly with Johnson due to his great admiration for the Rambler. He was also a close friend of Topham Beauclerk. Langton was an original member of the Club and also rose to the rank of major in the Lincolnshire militia. In 1770 he married Mary Lloyd (1743–1820), the widow of John Leslie, Earl of Rothes (1698?–1767) and the Lady Rothes referred to in the letter. A well-regarded Greek scholar despite an acute lack of publications, he succeeded Johnson as Professor of Ancient Literature at the Royal Academy in 1788. In this letter Goldsmith declined an invitation to visit Langton and his wife at their home in Lincolnshire. It is also the first time Goldsmith alludes to his comic masterpiece, She Stoops to Conquer. Langton's letter of invitation (also in the British Library) is given in full here:
My dear Sir,
You was so kind, when I had the Pleasure of seeing you in Town, as to speak of having Thoughts of giving me your Company here. I wish very much you would put your kind intention in Execution, in which Lady Rothes, who desires Her best Compliments, very sincerely concurs with me—it was, if you remember, at Joshua Reynolds's that we talked of this, who gave me Hopes too of Letting us see Him. I would have wrote to Him likewise to request that Favour, but in the Papers it was said that he went to France some time ago, and I do not know whether he is yet returned; if He is, and You have an opportunity of seeing Him, will You be so kind as to mention what I have said, and how much we wish for the Pleasure of His Company—I have sent for the History of England, but have not yet receivd it—some short extracts yt. I have already seen have entertained me much. Let me have the Pleasure of hearing from you, Dear Sir, as soon as you conveniently can after you receive this, and then, if you are so good as to say you are coming, I will immediately write you word of the particulars of the Road to this place and Means of conveyance &c—Will you give me Leave to ask in what Forwardness is the Natural History, or whether you are about any other Work that you chuse as yet to speak of? I hope Poetry takes up some of Your attention—tout I will intrude upon you no longer than to say that I am, Dear Sir, with great Respect and Regard
Your obedient humble Servant
Bennet Langton.
8 - To Edward Mills, London, 7 August [1758]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- 26 July 2018, pp 25-28
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Edward Mills was Goldsmith's cousin, the son of Charles Goldsmith's sister. Mills did not respond in any way to Goldsmith's request, as the later letter to Henry Goldsmith shows. This letter is introduced with thoughts upon what would become a quintessentially Goldsmithian opposition of ambition and domestic contentment. Mills, it seems, had forsaken a career at the bar in Dublin – or, more probably and profitably, London – and there is a little needling, possibly, in Goldsmith’s imagining his cousin's lost glories as enhancing his own. Mills has chosen instead his own smaller circle of acquaintance, the ‘cultivation of his paternal acres’. There is an awkwardness of tone in this letter as Goldsmith tries to establish, or re-establish, a connection with Mills only to set up his own request that Mills help to collect Irish subscriptions for Goldsmith's forthcoming Enquiry into the Present state of Polite Learning in Europe, which would be published anonymously in April 1759. Dated 7 August, this is the first letter of a series which Goldsmith wrote to relatives and friends in Ireland seeking such subscriptions in order to preempt Irish piracy.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the British Library. It was first published by Percy in 1801. It is addressed ‘To Edward Mills Esqr. | near | Roscommon | Ireland’ and postmarked 17 August. The bracketed portions, worn away in the manuscript, are supplied by Percy, except where otherwise noted.
Dr Sr.
You have quitted, I find, that plan of life which you once Intended to pursue, and given up ambition for domestic tranquillity: Were I to consult your satisfaction alone in this change I have the utmost reason to congratulate your choice, but when I consider my own I cant avoid feeling some regret, that one of my few friends has declin’d a pursuit in which he had every reason to expect success. The truth is, like the rest of the world I am self-interested in my concern and do not so much consider the happiness you have acquir’d as the honour I have probably lost in the change. I have often let my fancy loose when you were the subject, and have imagined you gracing the bench or thundering at the bar, while I have taken no small pride to myself and whispered all that I could come near, that that was my cousin.
38 - To Joseph Cradock, [London, December 1771]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 101-102
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Joseph Cradock (1742–1826) was a writer from Leicester. Upon moving to London, he became friendly with David Garrick and was well known to the literary set as an avid theatregoer. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1768 and assisted Garrick in the preparations for the Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769. He wrote a tragedy called Zobeide based on Voltaire's Les Scythes which was first performed on 11 December 1771 at Covent Garden. It had a further ten performances that season, ensuring that Cradock benefited from three author nights.
As the letter below shows, Goldsmith supplied the prologue to Zobeide, probably at the behest of one or both of the actors Richard and Mary Ann Yates. Cradock gave Mary Ann Yates, who played the eponymous heroine, the profit from the ninth night (£59 16s), presumably for her success in the role but perhaps also acknowledging her part in securing Goldsmith's prologue, which added to the new play's metropolitan appeal, as the reviews testify. The Middlesex Journal (12–14 December 1771) reported: ‘Upon the whole, there is merit in the Prologue, and the town was too just to withhold the tribute of approbation’, and the Critical Review (December 1771) went as far as to say that the Prologue and Epilogue (the latter supplied by Arthur Murphy) were ‘not excelled by many on the English stage’.
Cradock's literary output was not prodigious but there are some efforts of note. A pamphlet, The Life of John Wilkes, Esq., in the Manner of Plutarch (1773), inspired a Wilkesite mob to smash his windows. He later published another play and a novel but is best remembered for his four-volume Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs (1826–8), which holds a wealth of anecdotal information about London’s literary life.
The copy-text is Cradock's Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, where it was first published in 1826. It was addressed ‘For the Rt. Hon. Lord Clare, (Mr Cradock,) Gosfield, Essex’.
Mr. Goldsmith presents his best respects to Mr. Cradock, has sent him the Prologue, such as it is. He cannot take time to make it better. He begs he will give Mr. Yates the proper instructions; and so, even so, he commits him to fortune and the public.
Dedication
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- 26 July 2018, pp v-vi
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21 - To John Bindley, [London], 12 July 1766
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- 26 July 2018, pp 63-65
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See headnote to previous letter. Goldsmith and Bindley continue their exchange here with Goldsmith noting Bindley's younger brother's illness. James Bindley (1739–1818) was a book collector and a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge (1762–8). Goldsmith writes of him: ‘I never knew any one so short a time whose mind I fancy’d more like my own, that is in other words that I loved better.’ The younger Bindley assisted Edmond Malone with the third edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson (1799). He was also a friend of John Nichols, who described him in the fourth volume of Illustrations as a ‘kind-hearted and intelligent Bibliographer’. James Bindley suffered with ill health through much of his life.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the Beinecke Library, Yale University. It was first published in 1964 by Balderston in the Yale University Library Gazette, the year after Yale had acquired it from a private collection in Australia. Below Goldsmith's signature at the foot of the letter ‘Author of the Traveller & other works of genius’ is written in a different, later hand.
Dear Sir
You tell me I forgot to date my letter. I did that by design for if ever my letters come before a court of justice, as they want a date no body can take any hold of them. What do you think of me there? Now I will give you a receipt to make a conjuring box! Take four penny worth of half pence and rivet them together at the edge. Then let there be an hole in the bottom of these here halfpence to hold a die, or a conjurors ball no matter which, then you have a little tin box with which you cover the half pence, while the halfpence cover the die, and so taking the cover off and putting it on you can conjure. This I keep as a secret except upon particular occasions. Am I any body now? You are going to build two houses an hot house and a cold house. Ill be hanged but the one is an oven and the other a drain. I find however the pot pourri has succeeded, but the truth is, it was Mrs Bindley that was my operator, and I entreat that you may be kept away from the jar.
50 - To the Duke of Northumberland, [London], 18 March [1773]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- 26 July 2018, pp 115-116
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The letter appears to be an acknowledgement for Northumberland's support for She Stoops to Conquer. His presence at a performance – perhaps the benefit performance of 18 March – would have helped the play at a time when the presence of persons of fashion contributed to the success of a piece. Moreover, Goldsmith, through providing ‘orders’ – suggested by his promise to ‘take care for his Graces reception’ – would also have been pleased by the opportunity to do an elevated friend a favour. ‘Orders’ were the means by which a theatre gave free admission to selected patrons: on this, Goldsmith's first benefit night, he would have borne the cost of the tickets.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the British Library. It was first published by Balderston in 1928. The verso is marked ‘Goldsmith’ in red ink by Percy. ‘Duke of North’ is also inserted in pencil with a caret, not by Goldsmith, after ‘Grace’.
Temple. Thursday March 18.
Doctor Goldsmith presents his most humble respects to his Grace with his sincere thanks for his kind countenance and protection upon the present occasion. He will take care for his Graces reception.
14 - To Mrs. Johnson, [London, 1758‒1762]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 50-50
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The identity of Mrs Johnson is unknown and the nature of the business involving a guinea is unclear. The dating of the two notes to this Mrs Johnson is highly conjectural. Balderston suggests that the use of ‘Mr. Goldsmith’ in the first note indicates that it was written before 1763, around which time Goldsmith began routinely to refer to himself as ‘Dr. Goldsmith’ (BL, 70n2). However, it is also possible that Dr Keay referred to in the second note here is the Chester correspondent mentioned in Letter 11 of August 1758, which suggests an earlier date. Splitting the difference, so to speak, Balderston suggests the summer of 1760. It would appear that Mrs Johnson and Dr Keay were correspondents through whom Goldsmith carried out unspecified miscellaneous tasks and transactions: Mrs Johnson in London, Dr. Keay in Chester, which was, along with Holyhead, one of two major ports for traffic with Ireland.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. It was first published by Balderston in 1928. It is endorsed on the verso, in another hand, ‘To Mrs. Johnson’.
Mr. Goldsmith's best respects to Mrs. Johnson will pay a Guinea or whatever she thinks proper either of his own or her appointing only letting him know to whom or for what: He will wait on Mrs. Johnson if she thinks proper this evening at six, or if, as she intended she will call upon him he will be very proud of that honour. A line or two by the bearer will not be amiss.
33 - To Sir Joshua Reynolds, Paris, 29 July [1770]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 88-92
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Some days into the trip with the Hornecks, this letter suggests the expedition to France was not as harmonious as anticipated. In a later letter to their mutual friend Bennet Langton, Johnson confirms that the trip had not gone well: ‘Dr Goldsmith has been at Paris with the Hornecks not very delightfully to either side.’ In addition to financial pressures, the presence of Joseph Hickey, lawyer to Burke and Reynolds and who had much more up-to-date knowledge of Paris than he, appears to have irked Goldsmith, cast somewhat into the shadows. As later correspondence shows (see Letters 35 and 64), Goldsmith and the Hornecks repaired their friendship. This letter, with its litany of complaints about the diurnal aggravations of Continental travel, provides a humorous counterpoint to the cosmopolitan Goldsmith evoked by his poem The Traveller. The overarching sense of the letter is of a man who is missing the metropolitan whirl of London and its literary homosociality.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the Free Library of Philadelphia. It was first published by Prior in 1837. It is addressed: ‘To | Sir Joshua Reynolds | Leicester Fields | London’. The postmark is incomplete at the edge of the sheet but most likely records 4 August.
Paris July 29th
My Dear Friend.
I began a long letter to you from Lisle giving a description of all that we had done and seen but finding it very dull and knowing that you would shew it again I threw it aside and it was lost. You see by the top of this letter that we are at Paris, and (as I have often heard you say) we have brought our own amusement with us for the Ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we have yet seen. With regard to myself I find that travelling at twenty and at forty are very different things, I set out with all my confirmd habits about me and can find nothing on the continent so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief amusements here is scolding at every thing we meet with and praising every thing and every person we left at home. You may judge therefore whether your name is not frequently bandied at table among us. To tell you the truth I never thought I could regret your absence so much as our various mortifications on the road have often taught me to do.
Frontmatter
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp i-iv
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53 - To the Daily Advertiser, London, 31 March 1773
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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- 26 July 2018, pp 121-122
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Goldsmith attempted to draw a dignified line under an unfortunate public incident with a letter to this newspaper. The London Packet had printed a damning indictment of his talents and appearance by William Kenrick (see Letter 25) on 24 March 1773. Goldsmith was described in the article as having a ‘grotesque Oranhotan's figure’; The Deserted Village was dismissed as ‘a pretty poem, of easy numbers, without fancy, dignity, genius or fire’, while the recent She Stoops to Conquer was jeered as a ‘speaking pantomime […] an incoherent piece of stuff ‘. The article also scoffed at Goldsmith's unsuitability as a companion for the Jessamy Bride, Mary Horneck, to whom Goldsmith was very attached and of whom he was, like many of his peers, genuinely admiring. The offending piece can be found in full in Percy's biography; Percy also felt obliged to relegate the attack from the main text: ‘We would not defile our page with this scurrilous production, so shall insert it in the margin.’ As a result of the article, Goldsmith had tried to administer a beating to Thomas Evans (1738/9–1803), a Welsh bookseller in Paternoster Row and the publisher of the London Packet. Evans feigned ignorance of the matter but Goldsmith sought to give him a beating anyway, though Evans was, by all accounts, more than his physical match. According to one account, Evans defended himself ‘in a true pugilistic style’, and soon Goldsmith ‘was disarmed, and extended on the floor, to the no small diversion of the by-standers’. Kenrick himself, in a neighbouring room at the time, intervened to put an end to the skirmish which his own writing had brought about. Goldsmith left the scene, well beaten, and would eventually pay £50 to a Welsh charity to settle with Evans, who threatened a suit.
The copy-text is the Daily Advertiser (31 March 1773), where it was first published. It also appeared in the London Chronicle (1–3 April 1773).
5 - [To Daniel Hodson], [Edinburgh, c. December 1753]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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The copy-text is the manuscript in the Taylor Library at Princeton University, which consists of the lower part of a folio sheet with writing on both sides. It was first published by Balderston in 1928. Balderston notes that it was probably torn away and preserved for the signature. The recipient, not indicated on the original manuscript, was probably Dan Hodson. In Letter 1 to Hodson, Goldsmith writes in a similar tone regarding his circumstances, and there is also the shared connection to Contarine. The date is conjectural: the postscript refers to the previous letter in a way which implies that it was reasonably recent.
… share of my native assurance I shew’d my Talent and acquird the name of the facetious Irish man, I have either dined [o]r sup’d at His Graces this fortnight every second day, as I did not pretend to great things and let em into my circumstances and manner of thinking very freely they have recomended me to Mr Thos Coelehit
[…]
[al]ways sangui[ne but now I express my] ambitions—adieu
Oliver GoldsmithI have wrote My Uncle Contarine a long letter relative to the above mentiond afair I wish you coud see it as it is much fuller than this
11 - To Daniel Hodson, [London, c. 31 August 1758]
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, Trinity College Dublin
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- The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
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This is the penultimate known letter to refer to subscriptions for An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe. Goldsmith also explains to Hodson his intention to work as a physician with the East India Company, in one of its coastal Coromandel factories in southeastern India, in which were produced silk and cotton textiles, and gunpowder.
The copy-text is the manuscript in the British Library. It was first published by Percy in 1801. It is addressed ‘To | Daniel Hodson Esq.r at Lishoy near | Ballymahon. | Ireland’. It is postmarked 31 August. On the verso of the second page, with the address, there is a note from a family friend: ‘Killishee, Septemr 18th 1758. Mr. Piers's best Complimts to the his friends at Lisshoy. He is obliged to them for the Treat Noll's letter has afforded him – Every line speaks the writer and is a better picture of him than a Bindon cou’d give us of him – I shall long to see his book whatever it is – And desire I may have the honour of being among the Subscribers to it.’ It is likely that Hodson had passed the letter around among family and friends to encourage subscriptions for An Enquiry, and that in this instance Mr Piers had responded positively. The Bindon to whom Mr Piers refers in his note is Francis Bindon (c. 1690–1765), who painted several well-known likenesses of Swift, with whom he was friendly, between 1735 and 1740.
The bracketed portions are worn away in the manuscript, and are given here as suggested by Percy.
Dr. Sir
You can't expect regularity in a correspondence with one who is regular in nothing. Nay were I forc’d to love you by rule I dare venture to say I could never do it sincerely. Take me then with all my faults let me write when I please, for you see I say what I please and am only thinking aloud when writing to you. I suppose you have heard of my intention of going to the East Indies. The place of my destination is one of the factories on the coast of Coromandel and I go in quality of Physician and Surgeon for which the Company has sign’d my warrant which has already cost me ten pounds.