Groom of the Bedchamber during the reign of Charles II., and made himself conspicuous by supporting the party who would have excluded James II. from the Crown. This obnoxious act, however, did not operate to his prejudice when Charles died, for he was made Secretary of State, and created Baron Rialton in 1684. At the emergent conjuncture when William landed and James fled, he voted for a Regency, but had the influence or address to procure his nomination to the commission of the treasury when William and Mary were declared sovereigns. The reign of Anne wrought the climax of his honours: by her he was made Lord High Treasurer of England, Knight of the Garter, and Earl of Godolphin. In 1710, however, the conflict of state parties obliged him to retire from place, an event which he only survived two years. In the west walk of the cloisters is a marble tablet to the memory of his brother, who is thus eulogised : "Here rest, in hope of a blessed resurrection, CHARLES GODOLPHIN, Esq. brother of the Right Honourable Sidney Earl of Godolphin, Lord High Treasurer of Great Britain, who died July 16, 1720, aged 69, and Mrs. Godolphin, his wife, who died July 29, 1726, aged 63: whose excellent qualities and endowments can never be forgotten, particularly the public-spirited zeal with which he served his country in Parliament, and the indefatigable application, great skill, and nice integrity with which he discharged the trust of a Commissioner of the Customs for many years. Nor was she less eminent for her ingenuity, with sincere love of her friends, and constancy in religious worship. But, as charity and benevolence were the distinguishing parts of their characters, so were they most conspicuously displayed by the last act of their lives; a pious and charitable institution, by him designed and ordered, and by her completed, to the glory of God, and for a bright example to mankind: the endowment whereof is a rent-charge of one hundred and eighty pounds a year, issuing out of lands in Somersetshire, and of which one hundred and sixty pounds a year are to be ever aplied, from the 24th of June, 1726, to the educating eight oung gentlewomen, who are so born, and whose parents are of Me Church of England, whose fortunes do not exceed three undred pounds, and whose parents or friends will undertake to provide them with decent apparel; and after the death of the said Mrs. Godolphin, and William Godolphin, Esq. her nephew, such as have neither father or mother; which same young gentlewomen are not to be admitted before they are eight years old, nor to be continued after the age of nineteen, and are to be brought up in the city of New Sarum, or some other town in the county of Wilts, under the care of some prudent governess or schoolmistress, a communicant of the Church of England: and the overplus, after an allowance of five pounds a-year for collecting the said rent-charge, is to be applied to binding out one or more poor children apprentices, whose parents are of the Church of England. In perpetual memory whereof, Mrs. Frances Hall, executrix to her aunt, Mrs. Godolphin, has, according to her will, and by order, caused this inscription to be engraven on their monument, 1772." 522 OLIVER GOLDSMITH, B.A. M.B. HIGH over the south door in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey is an embellished medallion, by Nollekins, with a bust in profile of the author whose name stands prefixed to this sketch. So slight a tribute to his memory is certainly a very inadequate testimony of the variety or the greatness of his talents. The bust, though unpleasing to contemplate, has been praised for the fidelity of its resemblance to the original; and the Latin epitaph,* upon the tablet under it, has been admired as the composition of his friend Dr. Johnson. It may be thus translated :— The Memory of OLIVER GOLDSMITH, Poet, Philosopher, and Historian, By whom scarcely any style of writing was left untouched A powerful, yet lenient master *OLIVARII GOLDSMITH, Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit, Sive Lacrymæ ; Affectuum potens et lenis Dominator; Ingenio sublimis-vividus, versatilis In genius sublime, vivid, and versatile, In expression, noble, brilliant, and delicate, By the love of his companions, The fidelity of his friends, And the admiration of his readers. Born in the parish of Fernes, in Longford, a county of Ireland, At a place named Pallas, On the 29th November, 1731. On the 4th of April, 1774 To this epitaph several exceptions have been taken, of which, however, only two shall be repeated here:-it has been confidently asserted that Goldsmith was born not in Fernes, or at Pallas, but at Elphin, in the county of Roscommon; and not in the year 1731, but 1728. He was the third son of the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, a clergyman of the Protestant Church, whose labours were piously exercised at Elphin. The common accounts state that young Oliver was first instituted in the classics at a school kept by Mr. Hughes, at Elphin; but the editor of the Biographia Dramatica places the school at Edgeworthstown-the disagreement is not very important. In June, 1744, he was admitted into Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar, the name by which those students are recognized who receive subsistence as well as instruction upon the foundation. Neither at school, nor at the univer Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus, Amicorum Fides Lectorum Veneratio. Natus in Hiberniâ Forneia Longfordiensis, Obiit Londini April iv. MDCCLXXIV. sity did he evince any superiority of mind or application above his companions: diffident by nature, his genius lay suppressed from the world, and was perhaps unsuspected by himself. He took his degree of B.A. on the 27th of February, 1749, and then directed his views to the medical profession. After attending some courses of anatomy in the theatre of Dublin College, pursuant to this choice, he repaired to Edinburgh in 1751, and investigated those other branches of science which are requisite to accomplish the character of a physician. Goldsmith was the poet of feeling, and in the commonest occurrences of life was always prompt, even to the extremities of improvidence, in realising all those natural sympathies he could so beautifully describe. His own exquisite lines, Taught by the power that pities me, I learn to pity them, were the rule of his ordinary actions alike in youth and in age. This sensibility of relief on the one hand, and an insensibility of the value of money on the other, kept him almost invariably distressed, even at those periods when his publications were most frequent, and his resources most considerable. He had never the heart to hear the prayer of distress and refuse to relieve it; and when called on for assistance, as he often was by his poor countrymen, if he had not money, he would give away his clothes, and desire them to turn the only things he could part with into the direct substance of their desires. This beneficence of disposition early involved him in difficulties. A fellow-student prevailing on him to become security for the payment of a tailor's bill, he was soon obliged, in consequence of his inability to keep the engagement, to leave Edinburgh precipitately. But the tailor pursued him in his retreat with the long arm of the law; he was arrested in Sunderland, and conducted back to the college by bailiffs. From this predicament, however, the friendly interposition of Dr. Sleigh, and Laughlin Maclane, Esq. who were then Professors at the Metropolitan University of Scotland, effected his liberation; but, ere long, abandoning the scene of his imprudence and disgrace, he embarked on board a Dutch ship for Rotterdam. This event took place in 1744: his maternal uncle, |