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442 APPENDIX (A) , TO VOLUME I.

" round his waist, and repeating to him that it signified mourning for
" King George's death. This, we know, occurred in 1760, when we
" may suppose the boy about seven years old ; so, if born in 1753, or
" 1754, and living till 1837, he was certainly above four-score. He
" was a man of considerable attainments, and sundry resources ; he
" was a well-grounded Greek and Latin scholar, and, which is more
" rare in Ireland, a good prosodian. He had a thoroughly mechanical
" genius; he sometimes bound his own books; and had made, in a
" very workman-like manner, many articles of furniture in his parson-
" age-house. He was an expert mathematician, and was valued as such
" by the learned Bishop Law, of Elphin, with whom he corresponded
" on their favourite science. The good bishop had, besides, a high
" opinion of him as a regular and conscientious pastor.

" Through Strean, I made acquaintance, in 1798, with an old friend
" of his, Anthony Devenish, who had been, I believe, Goldsmith's
" school-fellow, and used to enlarge on the Bard's dexterity in the craft
" of ball-playing.

" I also, in those times, met at Athlone a Doctor JSTelligan, a cheerful,
" shrewd little man, with much humour ; and of him this story was in
" circulation:—Some one argued in his hearing, that Goldsmith must
" have written the Deserted Village in England, because the nightingale
" is sketched in as a feature in his rural picture, and it is supposed that
" there are not any nightingales in Ireland.

" Nelligan's retort was, that his opponent's logic was defective ; for,
" by his mode of drawing an inference, it might be shown that when
" Paradise Lost was written the immortal author must have been in
" Hell.

" As to the name of the birth-place of the poet of Auburn, it is
" unquestionably Pallis; the word, so spelled, was transcribed from a
" leaf of the Goldsmith family Bible ; and the entry is concluded to be
" in the hand-writing of Oliver's father.

" Your analysis of the Life and ' Strange surprising' Adventures of
" Goldsmith appears to me most ingeniously devised and executed;
" the idea strikes me as being eminently happy and new ; and your
" book might well have been announced as the history of Oliver Gold-
" smith's mind, for such it really is.

" You rather intimate, to my great gratification, that you do not
" conceive Goldsmith to have been understood by the persons among
" whom he usually moved; I own I have always thought he was not,
" and that his ordinary deportment and powers of conversation are'
" grossly misrepresented by several who have talked and scribbled so
" flippantly about his peculiarities and blunders. We had formerly at
" Upham's Library here (once Bull's), an assistant in the establishment
" of the name of Crute or Croot. He had filled the situation for many



	442 APPENDIX (A) , TO VOLUME I. " round his waist, and repeating to him that it signified mourning for " King George's death. This, we know, occurred in 1760, when we " may suppose the boy about seven years old ; so, if born in 1753, or " 1754, and living till 1837, he was certainly above four-score. He " was a man of considerable attainments, and sundry resources ; he " was a well-grounded Greek and Latin scholar, and, which is more " rare in Ireland, a good prosodian. He had a thoroughly mechanical " genius; he sometimes bound his own books; and had made, in a " very workman-like manner, many articles of furniture in his parson- " age-house. He was an expert mathematician, and was valued as such " by the learned Bishop Law, of Elphin, with whom he corresponded " on their favourite science. The good bishop had, besides, a high " opinion of him as a regular and conscientious pastor. " Through Strean, I made acquaintance, in 1798, with an old friend " of his, Anthony Devenish, who had been, I believe, Goldsmith's " school-fellow, and used to enlarge on the Bard's dexterity in the craft " of ball-playing. " I also, in those times, met at Athlone a Doctor JSTelligan, a cheerful, " shrewd little man, with much humour ; and of him this story was in " circulation:—Some one argued in his hearing, that Goldsmith must " have written the Deserted Village in England, because the nightingale " is sketched in as a feature in his rural picture, and it is supposed that " there are not any nightingales in Ireland. " Nelligan's retort was, that his opponent's logic was defective ; for, " by his mode of drawing an inference, it might be shown that when " Paradise Lost was written the immortal author must have been in " Hell. " As to the name of the birth-place of the poet of Auburn, it is " unquestionably Pallis; the word, so spelled, was transcribed from a " leaf of the Goldsmith family Bible ; and the entry is concluded to be " in the hand-writing of Oliver's father. " Your analysis of the Life and ' Strange surprising' Adventures of " Goldsmith appears to me most ingeniously devised and executed; " the idea strikes me as being eminently happy and new ; and your " book might well have been announced as the history of Oliver Gold- " smith's mind, for such it really is. " You rather intimate, to my great gratification, that you do not " conceive Goldsmith to have been understood by the persons among " whom he usually moved; I own I have always thought he was not, " and that his ordinary deportment and powers of conversation are' " grossly misrepresented by several who have talked and scribbled so " flippantly about his peculiarities and blunders. We had formerly at " Upham's Library here (once Bull's), an assistant in the establishment " of the name of Crute or Croot. He had filled the situation for many