. . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 262
THE PARSONAGE. From the same . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To face p. 264
INTRODUCTION
Two of the earlier, and, in some respects, more important 'Memoirs' of
Oliver Goldsmith open with a quotation from one of his minor works, in
which he refers to the generally uneventful life of the scholar. His own
chequered career was a notable exception to this rule. He was born on
the 10th of November, 1728, at Pallas, a village in the county of
Longford in Ireland, his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, being a
clergyman of the Established Church. Oliver was the fifth of a family of
five sons and three daughters. In 1730, his father, who had been
assisting the rector of the neighbouring parish of Kilkenny West,
succeeded to that living, and moved to Lissoy, a hamlet in Westmeath,
lying a little to the right of the road from Ballymahon to Athlone.
Educated first by a humble relative named Elizabeth Delap, the boy
passed subsequently to the care of Thomas Byrne, the village
schoolmaster, an old soldier who had fought Queen Anne's battles in
Spain, and had retained from those experiences a wandering and unsettled
spirit, which he is thought to have communicated to one at least of his
pupils.
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