Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
A Biography
Book Excerpt
r fairies, who in Ireland are supposed to delight in old,
crazy, deserted mansions for their midnight revels. All attempts to repair
it were in vain; the fairies battled stoutly to maintain possession. A huge
misshapen hobgoblin used to bestride the house every evening with an
immense pair of jack-boots, which, in his efforts at hard riding, he would
thrust through the roof, kicking to pieces all the work of the preceding
day. The house was therefore left to its fate, and went to ruin.
Such is the popular tradition about Goldsmith's birthplace. About two years after his birth a change came over the circumstances of his father. By the death of his wife's uncle he succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West; and, abandoning the old goblin mansion, he removed to Lissoy, in the county of Westmeath, where he occupied a farm of seventy acres, situated on the skirts of that pretty little village.
This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world whence he drew many of those pictures, rural and domestic
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