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Oliver Goldsmith

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, English poet, playwright, novelist, and man of letters, was born in 1728. There has been some question as to the place of his birth, but recent investigators have claimed that it was at Smith-Hill House, Elphin, Roscommon, Ireland. While Oliver was still a child the family moved to the county of West Meath. He was sent to the village school when only seven, where the master, while teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, managed to also fill the minds of his pupils with stories of fairies, ghosts, banshees. Goldsmith left this school at the age of nine, and went to several grammar-schools, and acquired some knowledge of the ancient languages. He was not a brilliant scholar; in fact was considered rather backward. He was small of stature, with features harsh to ugliness, and was the butt of the other boys and the masters.

After many and varied attempts to fit himself for a profession, and repeated failures, he took to writing. As his name gradually became known, his circle of acquaintances widened. He was introduced to Johnson, then considered the first of English writers, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, the famous English painter, and others.

Before the "Vicar of Wakefield" appeared in 1766, came the great crisis of Goldsmith's life. In Christmas week, 1764, he published a poem entitled "The Traveller." It was the first work to which he had put his name, and it raised him at once to the rank of a legitimate English classic. After "The Traveller" appeared "The Vicar of Wakefield," and it rapidly obtained a popularity which has lasted down to our own times. "The earlier chapters show all the sweetness of pastoral poetry, together with all the vivacity of comedy." It is claimed that the latter part of the tale is not worthy of the beginning.

The success which he won with this story encouraged Goldsmith to try his hand as a dramatist, and he wrote the "Good Natur'd Man." The play, however, which is best known to later times is "She Stoops to Conquer." It was brought out at the Covent Garden Theater, and "pit, boxes, and galleries were in a constant roar of laughter."

Goldsmith died on April 4, 1774, in his forty-sixth year. He was laid in the churchyard of the Temple, but the spot was not marked by any inscription and is now forgotten.