The Family Letters of Oliver Goldsmith

The Family Letters of Oliver Goldsmith - A Paper Read Before the Bibliographical Society, October 15th, 1917

IN a paper which I was privileged to read before this honourable Society three years ago as to New Lights on Chatterton, I mentioned incidentally that the researches of which that paper was the outcome had arisen out of the examination by me of a large bundle of papers that had been collected by Bishop Percy of Dromore, the editor of the famous Reliques of Ancient Poetry, and had apparently remained unexplored since his death in 1811. The Chatterton documents were by no means the most important and were certainly the least puzzling of the array of miscellaneous papers included in this bundle, which contained not only a variety of notes about Shakespeare and other subjects which had engaged the Bishops attention, but chiefly and most interestingly a large quantity of original letters written by and about Oliver Goldsmith. To discuss in detail the whole of the questions arising out of these Goldsmith papers would really amount to writing a new life of that poet, which I have no intention of doing. There exist already many biographies of Oliver by writers of the first rank, and no fact of salient importance concerning himself remains to be revealed, whatever may be said as to his writings. There are, it is true, side-lights of some literary interest and value afforded by the papers that have come unexpectedly my way through[4] the kindness and generosity of the great grand-daughter of the Bishop by whose favour you have the advantage of personally inspecting the original letters which I shall presently describe: but this is not the occasion for minuti concerning them. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 62390
Author: Clarke, Ernest
Release Date: Jun 13, 2020
Format: eBook
Language: English